PLANNING approval is being sought for a massive data centre at the former IBM site in Greenock.
The 80,000-square-metre facility at Spango Valley would be housed in four buildings up to 18 metres high on land owned by Greenock businessmen Sandy and James Easdale.
The site would be accessed via an upgraded signal-controlled junction from Inverkip Road at the eastern boundary. Most of the existing woodland would be retained.
Slate Island Developments Ltd is asking Inverclyde Council for planning permission in principle for the hi-tech complex. If approved, detailed plans would then be submitted, including building footprint, height and materials.
IBM left the site in 2017, with the land cleared for redevelopment. The Easdales secured approval for a major housing-led proposal in 2022 but a viable end user has not be secured, prompting consideration of alternative uses.
A statement included with the application explains: “There has been strong interest from a data centre operator, and such a use is considered to be well suited to the site due to growing demand nationally for data centres as demonstrated and the site’s large areas of previously formed development platform, which is ideally suited to a ‘large floorplate’ user.”
Data centres are specialised facilities that house computer systems, storage devices, and networking infrastructure to handle large amounts of digital data. They support the use of digital services like cloud computing/storage, online web streaming, and the use of current high memory usage software.
Also proposed, for the western end of the site, is a battery energy storage system, the plans for which have to be submitted to the Scottish Government Energy Consents Unit because its capacity would be more than 50 megawatts.
Battery energy storage systems (BESS) store electrical energy generated from sources such as wind and solar during periods of high generation and low demand which can then be exported back into the grid network when required.
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