I agree that the ideal usage of renewable energy is to decarbonise existing things, however we are already at the point where renewable energy companies are being paid to stop producing energy as it has nowhere to go. Millions of pounds are spent doing this most months.

Now the best use of public money is in making sure that energy goes into decarbonisation projects and grid upgrades, no argument there. But if private industry wants to invest in using renewable energy that would otherwise go to waste and result in the government hading out money to other private investors to not create energy then I think that's a good thing.

The point about empty space is that it is easy to put the data centre's away from where people live, their land usage footprint is tiny. The UK could build data centres for the entire world and the amount of land used would be less than the grouse shooting estates, we should focus on those and grazing land to rewild.

As the article points out, most of that is companies trying it on with no real intention of following through. the current total data centre capacity in the UK is ~2GW with another 0.8GW under construction. There's no realistic prospect of 9GW of them being built in Scotland.

Also the argument that "too much of them would be bad" applies to almost everything, and isn't a reason to allow none of them, regulation exists and should be used!