Scotland’s electricity connection queue contains close to 30 data-centre projects seeking about 9.7GW of capacity, according to the National Energy System Operator. The figure is substantially larger than the data-centre pipeline visible through planning records, while Ofgem has now proposed creating a formal demand-capacity register as regulators try to establish which projects in Britain’s rapidly growing queue are real, viable and likely to be built.
The scale of prospective data-centre demand on Scotland’s electricity system emerged during evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Tourism and Energy Committee on 15 September.
Martyn Day MSP referred to around 20 AI data centres in the pipeline. Matt Magill, Director of Engineering and Customer Solutions at the National Energy System Operator, corrected the number.
“There are closer to 30 in Scotland at the moment — it is about 9.7GW.”
The figure does not mean Scotland is about to acquire 9.7GW of operating data centres. A place in the electricity connection queue is not planning permission, construction, financing or an operating data centre, and NESO itself expects some applications to disappear as the demand queue is reformed.
It does, however, provide the clearest official indication yet of the scale of data-centre development seeking access to Scotland’s electricity system.
It also exposes a gap between two systems through which the same developments progress. Scotland’s planning authorities can see developments once they enter planning. Network operators and NESO can know about proposed electricity demand years earlier, when a developer seeks a connection.
Those records have not previously been brought together in one comprehensive public demand register.
The Grid Queue Is Larger Than the Visible Planning Pipeline
Action to Protect Rural Scotland has been independently tracking proposed data centres through planning portals and public announcements. Its count at the end of August identified 21 projects representing approximately 7.3GW of potential capacity in the planning pipeline.
APRS is a campaigning organisation and its 7.3GW figure is its own analysis rather than an official government total. It nevertheless provides a useful comparison because it was assembled from developments visible in public planning and project records.
NESO’s evidence of close to 30 projects and 9.7GW in the connection queue indicates a larger group of prospective developments than can presently be identified through that planning exercise.
The difference does not establish that unidentified projects will be built, or even that all have reached the stage of selecting a final site. Some may be speculative. Some may not yet require planning permission. Some could change substantially before reaching the planning system, while others could disappear from the connection queue altogether.
Magill told MSPs that some connection dates extend into the late 2030s and that developers may therefore not have to demonstrate planning permission to NESO for years.
That timing helps explain how a proposed data centre can exist in the electricity system’s records before appearing as a mature development in a council planning portal.
Britain’s Demand Queue Expanded From 41GW to 125GW in Seven Months
The Scottish figure sits inside a much larger problem now confronting Britain’s electricity system.
Ofgem says contracted demand connection offers increased from 41GW in November 2024 to 125GW by June 2025. The regulator says the increase was driven largely by data-centre projects, which accounted for at least 80GW of the queue in the figures it published in July 2026.
Its detailed consultation refers to around 73GW of contracted data-centre demand. The figures arise from different definitions and stages of the connection data, but both demonstrate a queue far larger than the amount of data-centre development expected actually to materialise.
Ofgem’s assessment is that a significant number of projects may not ultimately proceed.
That creates a practical problem for the electricity network. Connection capacity, engineering work and network reinforcement can be planned around projects that may never be built, while viable developments can wait behind projects holding earlier places in the queue.
The regulator has therefore proposed a specific regime for data centres.
Under the plans published on 29 July, relevant projects would face a commitment requirement worth between £237,500 and £712,500 per megawatt, designed to give developers a substantial financial interest in surrendering queue positions they do not intend to use.
Projects would also have to pass data-centre-specific milestones demonstrating a credible end user, procurement of long-lead electrical equipment such as switchgear, and the financial and technical capability to deliver the project.
The consultation closed in September and Ofgem has not yet issued its final decision.
The Regulator Now Wants a Demand Capacity Register
A second Ofgem consultation, opened on 25 September, addresses the information problem directly.
The regulator is proposing new electricity-connections datasets, including a demand capacity register.
Generation projects have long been much easier to identify through published electricity-system registers. NESO publishes, for example, an Embedded Register covering generation projects connected or contracted to connect in Scotland.
An equivalent comprehensive public register for major electricity demand has not existed.
Ofgem’s current proposal would create one as part of a wider programme to improve connections data, standards, data quality and publication.
The timing is significant. It follows months in which NESO and Ofgem have been trying to understand what is actually contained in the demand queue.
NESO launched a Demand Queue Call for Input after the surge in applications, saying accurate and current data about the existing queue had become critical to reform.
It has subsequently issued a formal Information Request Notice seeking further information from demand customers about project readiness, delivery risks and forward plans.
NESO’s own high-level analysis of responses demonstrates the difficulty. It says data centres form the largest single technology category across the demand information received and identifies Scotland among the areas containing major clusters.
It also says around 16GW of responses across Great Britain contained insufficient information to link them to a systemised Connections Projects record.
That 16GW is a Britain-wide data-quality issue, not a figure for Scotland. It nevertheless illustrates why the system operator is still gathering information about a queue on which future network decisions may depend.
Scotland Began Building Its Own Planning Pipeline Record in August
The Scottish Government has separately moved to improve visibility of large data-centre projects once they reach planning.
On 17 August, Chief Planner Fiona Simpson issued a direction requiring every Scottish planning authority to notify ministers within seven days when it validates an application for a new data centre exceeding 50MW of power capacity.
The requirement also applies to applications that were already under consideration when the direction came into force.
The stated purpose is to give ministers strategic oversight of the pipeline and allow monitoring of its implications for wider infrastructure.
Until that direction, large data-centre proposals were principally visible through the individual planning authorities handling them. Scotland has 32 councils, each with its own planning records, while electricity connections operate through a separate national system.
The new notification regime therefore creates a central Scottish Government view of large projects once they enter planning, but it does not itself reveal all earlier-stage projects already seeking electricity connections.
A second direction came into force on 17 September. All new data centres above 50MW must now undergo Environmental Impact Assessment.
The Government said the requirement reflected developing evidence around energy demand, water use, hardware requirements and environmental effects.
A Queue Position and a Planning Application Follow Different Clocks
The approximately 9.7GW identified by NESO cannot be read as a forecast of future Scottish electricity consumption.
A connection agreement establishes a route through the electricity system. A planning application determines whether a development can be built on a particular site. Financing determines whether the developer can pay for it. Commercial demand determines whether customers eventually occupy it.
Those stages can occur years apart.
Magill told the parliamentary committee that policy changes under Ofgem’s “Curate” work would probably remove some of the more speculative data-centre applications presently in the queue.
Dr Callum MacIver of the University of Strathclyde told the same committee that the present connection queue was “almost unfeasibly large” and that it was very unlikely that all projects seeking connections would proceed.
That caution is essential when interpreting the Scottish figure. The 9.7GW measures requested grid capacity represented in the queue described by NESO in September. It is not 9.7GW of consented construction and not 9.7GW of measured load.
Ninety Per Cent of the Demand Queue Arrived in Half a Year
The speed of the change has made conventional infrastructure planning particularly difficult.
During the September committee evidence, Magill said about 90 per cent of the demand queue had arrived during the first half of 2025.
That is consistent with Ofgem’s national figures showing contracted demand offers jumping from 41GW to 125GW between November 2024 and June 2025.
A network planned around power stations, homes, factories and gradual electrification was suddenly receiving applications for very large blocks of new demand on a different scale and timetable.
Data centres are not the only new source of electricity demand. Heat pumps, electric vehicles, industrial electrification, hydrogen production and other technologies are also expected to increase consumption.
But Ofgem says data centres account for a dominant part of the recent connection surge.
The regulator has divided its response into three programmes: Curate, to remove projects unlikely to proceed; Plan, to determine how large new demand should fit the future energy system; and Connect, to improve the physical connection process.
More Demand in Scotland Is Not Necessarily a Grid Problem
The amount of electricity requested by data centres is only one part of the system calculation. Location can change the effect substantially.
Scotland regularly produces more renewable electricity than can be moved south through constrained parts of the transmission network. When those constraints bind, generators can be paid to reduce output while other generation is increased elsewhere.
NESO has argued that placing large electricity users closer to renewable generation in Scotland could reduce some of those costs over the long term.
Its chief executive, Fintan Slye, said in May that new Scottish electricity demand from industries including AI data centres could make better use of renewable generation and reduce the need to move power over constrained boundaries.
That does not mean that any data centre at any Scottish location would produce that effect.
Dr MacIver told the parliamentary committee that location within Scotland is important because the major transmission constraint between Scotland and England is not the only constraint on the system. Large demand on the wrong side of an internal bottleneck can create different network requirements from demand situated closer to surplus generation.
The question for system planners is therefore becoming not simply how much data-centre demand connects, but where it connects, when it arrives and whether the associated network investment is justified by a project likely to proceed.
The Planning System Is Now Moving Faster Than the Energy Strategy
Scotland’s planning response has developed quickly during the past two months.
Applications above 50MW must now be reported to ministers. Environmental Impact Assessments are mandatory above the same threshold. Scottish ministers have also intervened in individual cases and Parliament has debated the absence of dedicated national planning guidance for hyperscale development.
On 6 October, Public Finance Minister Hannah Mary Goodlad said the Government had not issued instructions requiring councils to delay determination of data-centre applications, but that it did not anticipate planning authorities determining applications before national data-centre guidance is issued later this year.
Grid reform is developing on a different timetable. Ofgem’s decision on the proposed data-centre commitment arrangements remains outstanding, while its consultation on improved connections data and a demand capacity register remains open until 6 November.
The two systems are therefore converging on the same problem from opposite directions.
Planning authorities need to understand the cumulative scale of proposed development. Electricity planners need to know which enormous demand applications are credible.
Parliament Has Now Opened a Wider Inquiry
On 7 October, the Scottish Parliament opened a joint call for evidence from its Climate Action Committee and Economy, Tourism and Energy Committee.
The committees are seeking evidence on electricity demand, generation, network infrastructure, balancing, water, air quality, emissions, backup generation, biodiversity, economic benefits and the criteria that should apply to claims that a data centre is “green”.
The call closes on 15 November.
The parliamentary inquiry begins with a substantially clearer measure of prospective grid demand than Scotland had only weeks ago: close to 30 data-centre projects representing about 9.7GW in NESO’s connection queue.
What remains unresolved is how much of that queue survives Ofgem’s viability tests, which projects correspond to developments already visible in Scotland’s planning system, where the remainder are intended to connect, and how much network capacity should ultimately be reserved for them.
Ofgem’s proposed demand capacity register would make future scrutiny easier. Until such a register exists, the 9.7GW figure remains an aggregate supplied to Parliament by the system operator rather than a public list through which each Scottish project can be identified and followed from grid application to planning consent, construction and operation.
Sources
Economy, Tourism and Energy Committee Official Report — Data Centres (Energy Use)
Scottish Parliament, 15 September 2026
https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/ETE-15-09-2026
Ofgem acts to free up grid capacity by tackling speculative data centre projects
Ofgem, 29 July 2026
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/press-release/ofgem-acts-free-grid-capacity-tackling-speculative-data-centre-projects
Proposed data centre connection reforms
Ofgem, 29 July 2026
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consultation/proposed-data-centre-connection-reforms
Transforming connections data
Ofgem, 25 September 2026
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consultation/transforming-connections-data
Demand Queue Call for Input
National Energy System Operator, 2025–26
https://www.neso.energy/industry-information/connections/demand-queue-call-input-cfi
Demand Call for Input — High Level Summary
National Energy System Operator, 2026
https://www.neso.energy/document/378226/download
Demand Information Request Notice
National Energy System Operator, 2026
https://www.neso.energy/industry-information/connections/demand-information-request-notice-irn
Growing energy demand in Scotland could help lower long term bills, says NESO chief executive
National Energy System Operator, 13 May 2026
https://www.neso.energy/growing-energy-demand-scotland-could-help-lower-long-term-bills-says-neso-chief-executive
Planning — Notification Direction Letter — Data Centres
Scottish Government, 20 August 2026
https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-notification-direction-letter-data-centres-august-2026/
Data centres: Chief Planner letter and EIA Direction
Scottish Government, 16 September 2026
https://www.gov.scot/publications/chief-planner-letter-eia-direction-on-data-centres/
Why is data centre demand on the grid not being tracked as generation and storage demand are?
Action to Protect Rural Scotland, 28 September 2026
https://aprs.scot/resources/why-is-future-data-centre-demand-on-the-grid-not-being-tracked/
Hyperscale Data Centres — Short Survey and Detailed Call for Evidence
Scottish Parliament, opened 7 October 2026
https://yourviews.parliament.scot/329/hyper-scale-data-centres-short-survey/
