A former IBM factory site outside Glasgow in Scotland could become a data center and battery storage development.

First reported by the Greenock Telegraph, Slate Island Developments is looking to develop a data center and battery energy storage system (BESS) at the former IBM site along Inverkip Road in Spango Valley, Greenock.

Greenock is a town in Inverclyde in the west central Lowlands of Scotland, some 23 miles (37km) west of Glasgow.

According to the dedicated project website from Slate, the BESS will total 99MW. Full details on the data center portion of the project haven’t been shared, but site plans suggest one 34,500 sqm (371,355 sq ft) building and one 40,000 sqm (430,556 sq ft) building. The company hopes to secure planning permission by the end of the year.

IBM opened a factory in Spango Valley in 1954 to manufacture typewriters and other office equipment, before expanding to personal computers and including a call center.

By the late 2000s, IBM had sold off parts of its operations at the site, and later sold its building at the complex on a sale-leaseback basis. The development was rebranded as Valley Park.

IBM had fully exited the site by 2016, and by 2020, all the former IBM buildings had been demolished and cleared for redevelopment.

Planning permission for a mixed-use development comprising residential, industrial/business use, retail & leisure use, and park & ride was granted at the site in 2022. The old IBM rail station serving the complex closed in 2018 and was set to be reopened. The project was being led by the owners of McGill’s bus group.

However, according to Slate, the site owners had not managed to secure a viable end user for the planned development, and now there has been “strong interest” from an unnamed data center operator to occupy the site.

Despite having ample renewable power available, Scotland has traditionally had a minimal data center market. DataVita is probably the largest operator in the country, while Asanti & Atos, Pulsant, IOmart, CenterServ, and Lumen operate small facilities across Scotland. In December of 2021, Oracle closed the Sun Microsystems data center in Linlithgow.

The Scottish government has previously run campaigns promoting the country as a data center destination, identifying multiple potential development sites that can be made available. And, over the last 18 months or so, a number of large-scale developments have been proposed across the country.

These include projects by renewable developers Apatura and ILI Group, as well as developments proposed by new firms AI Pathfinder, SDCL, Shelborn Drummond, and Argyll Data Development.

Local opposition group Foxglove has identified 11 proposed data centers ranging from 200MW to 550MW. The projects span the country, including Edinburgh (x2), North Lanarkshire (x2), East Ayrshire (x2), Scottish Borders, Fife, West Lothian, East Dunbartonshire, and South Lanarkshire.

Campaign group Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) has called for a moratorium on new hyperscale data centers in Scotland, claiming planned developments could harm the environment and swallow up more than 5GW of power.