The Scottish Greens have told the First Minister consult the public on national planning guidance for AI hyperscale data centres.

Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie has written to John Swinney urging him to open a public consultation on the issue.

Mr Harvie said the Scottish Government had committed to ensuring the public has “opportunities to participate in the design and delivery of climate and nature policies that affect them” and that this must include AI hyperscale data centres.

The Greens say that the electricity from hyperscale data centres threatens to derail Scotland’s progress to decarbonise. Current proposals would equal around twice Scotland’s peak electricity demand.

Further planning applications for AI hyperscale data centres are continuing to emerge. Just last week, an application was lodged for a colossal site at Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway.

If approved, the data centre would have a capacity of 1GW – bigger than any other data centre in the world. If operated at full capacity, the facility would use 7 million MWh of energy a year, equivalent to the energy used by over two million homes.

Mr Harvie said: “It is imperative that the Scottish Government gets this right, and doesn’t leave communities behind while bending to the whim of well-funded developers who are seeking to make a profit from Scotland’s resources.

“Communities across Scotland must be involved in the creation of national planning guidance for AI hyperscale data centres.

“It is essential that a broad range of community representatives, credible environmental voices, and energy experts are actively engaged with this process and their feedback used to shape this guidance at a critical point of the process.

“I urge the First Minister to launch a public consultation on this as soon as possible.”

It comes as campaigners have urged the Scottish Government to hold a “national conversation” on the need for hyperscale data centres.

Stop Climate Chaos Scotland and more than a dozen other groups made the plea in a letter to public finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad, calling on her to ensure a “formal public consultation on hyperscale data centres before any are approved”.

The groups, who also include Action to Protect Rural Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Friends of the Earth Scotland, wrote to the minister in the wake of a Holyrood vote which set out that no planning decisions should be taken on proposed data centres before new guidance is developed by the Scottish Government.

Ms Goodlad – who told MSPs last month that planning guidance on data centres will be ready before Christmas – is also being urged to use this time to carry out further research into the impact of large-scale data centres.

Campaigners want to see independent analysis on the impact of hyperscale data centres on both Scotland’s grid and its net zero commitments.

In addition, they want a public consultation to be held on AI data centres over 50MW (megawatts) – saying this should consider if Scotland needs such facilities and how they could improve the “public good”.

Public finance minister Ms Goodlad said: “We must balance the economic and employment interests in developing data centres with national energy, climate and community wealth building ambitions, which are vital to our future prosperity, as well as the potential impact on local communities.

“Ensuring that an Environmental Impact Assessment is always part of the application process will create a level playing field for developers and will ensure potentially significant environmental effects are considered from the outset.

“The voices of communities that will be affected will be central to any considerations on data centres.”