Scotland’s biggest new battery project is not just an energy story. The 1GWh Devilla site at Kincardine, financed by international infrastructure capital alongside the Scottish National Investment Bank and the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, is exactly the kind of grid‑scale storage the country’s emerging AI and data centre cluster needs in order to function — and it is arriving just as a UK pricing mechanism and a Scottish strategy are being built around that same connection between batteries, renewables and digital infrastructure.
Devilla: 1GWh of storage on Scotland’s grid
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is building the 500MW, two‑hour Devilla Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at Kincardine, giving Scotland a 1GWh grid‑scale battery that CIP says will be among Europe’s largest once operational in 2028. The project has secured a 10‑year optimisation agreement with SSE and a 15‑year capacity market contract, locking in long‑dated revenue to underpin the build while leaving room to earn from wholesale and balancing markets.
Devilla is transmission‑connected and part of a three‑project Alcemi–CIP portfolio in Scotland totalling 1.5GW and 3GWh, enough to supply more than 4.5 million households for two hours, with CIP developing a further 4.5GW of battery storage across Scotland and England.
Robin Tayal, investment director at the Scottish National Investment Bank, said: “Battery energy storage systems are a critical part of improving energy security and stability. The Devilla site is strategically located and will support renewable integration, grid stability, and system flexibility. We are pleased to partner with CIP and the wider investor group to support the delivery of this important asset.” The grid stability and system flexibility Tayal points to are exactly what make it possible to plan large new digital loads in central Scotland without driving up overall system costs, which is what makes Devilla a Silicon Scotland story as much as an energy one.
Enabling data centres and AI campuses
Grid access is already the single biggest constraint on new digital infrastructure in the UK, from hyperscale data centres to AI compute campuses. In a March 2026 piece on Apatura’s own platform, chief executive Giles Hanglin argued that central Scotland’s grid bottleneck — the inability to export renewable electricity south to England — cost UK consumers “more than £1.5 billion last year” through constraint payments, a figure he said is “on course to reach £4–8 billion annually by 2030.” He argued that “the rapid roll‑out of large‑scale data centres in central Scotland, combined with large battery storage, could soak up vast amounts of this otherwise wasted electricity, reducing constraint costs for consumers and kick‑starting economic renewal in areas blighted by historical industrial decline.”
The same article set out a five‑project central‑belt pipeline with potential capital investment of around £12 billion, anchored by a flagship £4.2 billion Ravenscraig campus that Apatura says could support more than 4,000 construction jobs and around 2,400 long‑term operational roles.
The UK Government has now begun building a pricing mechanism that recognises that connection explicitly. In its November 2025 “Delivering AI Growth Zones” policy document, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology proposed that 500MW data centres in designated AI Growth Zones would receive an electricity cost reduction of up to £24 per MWh in Scotland, £16 per MWh in Cumbria and £14 per MWh in the North East from April 2027, subject to legislation, with a review point in 2030. The discount is targeted, not general, and in Scotland currently applies only to the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone. It works precisely by using digital loads and storage together to absorb surplus renewables and reduce constraint payments — the same function CIP’s release describes for Devilla itself.
Public capital anchoring digital‑adjacent infrastructure
According to Scottish business press, SNIB has committed £50m to Devilla, with the Nuclear Liabilities Fund taking a separate undisclosed stake, while CIP retains the majority interest and delivery lead through its Copenhagen Infrastructure IV fund. The commitment helped push the Bank past the £1bn committed milestone earlier this year, following a £10m equity investment in Inverness‑based Aurora Energy Services.
For a Silicon Scotland readership, the relevant observation is structural rather than financial. Scottish public capital is not originating these grid‑scale assets, but it is increasingly anchoring privately developed infrastructure of the kind on which the country’s AI and data centre ambitions now visibly depend.
Batteries as part of Scotland’s AI strategy
Scotland’s updated AI strategy, published by the Scottish Government in March, sets out a 2026–2031 plan in which AI Scotland will operate as the national flagship programme for delivery, with the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone named as a specific priority among ten key actions to be completed by the end of March 2027. The strategy explicitly references “a £2.5 billion renewable‑powered AI compute campus using next‑generation GPU technology in Lanarkshire” as part of the country’s green compute pitch.
Third‑party analysis of the strategy has named CoreWeave and DataVita as the campus partners and highlighted a separate £15bn AI industrial park development in North Ayrshire, though those elements have yet to be set out in the government text itself. Set alongside Devilla’s 1GWh of storage and the wider 3GWh CIP–Alcemi pipeline, the strategy’s framing of green data centres and AI growth zones reads less as aspiration and more as a build‑out programme whose physical infrastructure is now being financed in concrete terms.
CIP partner Nischal Agarwal said: “As CIP’s development and construction portfolio of UK BESS projects continues to progress and grow, we look forward to welcoming the Scottish National Investment Bank and Nuclear Liabilities Fund as new equity partners on our Devilla site. Once commissioned in 2028, Devilla will be one of Europe’s biggest operational BESS projects. The delivery of Devilla, alongside CIP’s Coalburn 1 and 2 projects, will improve the UK’s energy security and reduce costs for British consumers through enhanced system flexibility and access to more low-cost renewables.” For Scotland’s digital sector, the relevant point in Agarwal’s framing is the system flexibility and low‑cost renewables half. Those are the conditions under which energy‑intensive AI workloads can be hosted close to where the country’s renewables are generated, rather than continuing the current pattern of exporting power south and importing compute services back.
What to watch next
Three questions now sit in front of Scotland’s tech and energy communities. First, will the SNIB–NLF template repeat on CIP’s Coalburn 1 and 2 projects, further deepening public exposure to grid‑scale storage that underpins digital growth. Second, how quickly will the UK Government’s £24 per MWh AI Growth Zone mechanism move from November 2025 proposal to April 2027 implementation, and will Lanarkshire remain the only designated Scottish zone or will further sites follow. Third, at what point do Scotland’s policy framework, planning system and grid reform align enough for the country to capture data centre and AI campus investment that is currently visible as pipeline rather than committed build.
If Devilla, Coalburn and the next wave of storage projects are read as part of Scotland’s digital stack rather than just its power system, the country will be better placed to convert the AI and data centre boom it is helping to power into investment that lands here rather than elsewhere.
