A 10MW data centre near the foot of the Clyde Dam has been proposed to be built. The facility will collectively feature eight containerised data centres, each expected to hold 368 servers.
Owned and operated by UK-based digital infrastructure start-up Lake Parime, the proposed data centres would operate on flexible demand, this means that processing could be managed to reduce demand during periods of low river flows and optimised during periods of low electricity demand or when the Clyde Dam would otherwise be required to spill water.
The application states data centre operators were looking for secure renewable energy sources to power computers designed to process large volumes of data in response to emerging markets such as machine learning, data modelling and cryptocurrency mining. From 2025, the proposed substation would improve the reliability of electricity supply to the Clyde township and wider Clyde area. Until the substation became a shared use site in 2025, all costs were being funded through the construction of the data centre.
Lake Parime would employ local contractors in the construction and ongoing maintenance roles and create a small number of highly skilled maintenance jobs to manage the servers within the data centre and associated electronic and electrical services.
