Staff Services Student Enterprise
26 IND10 CSE Engagement Day Web

Building a sustainable tomorrow

The Role of Energy and Data Infrastructure in Scotland's Future
Project contact
Madeleine Schia 800
Madeleine Schia
Business Development Executive School of Engineering Institute for Energy Systems FloWave and IDCORE
Madeleine.Schia@ei.ed.ac.uk

Welcome to Building a sustainable tomorrow

Our Engagement Day on 21 May 2026 focuses on “The impacts of changing and emerging energy and data infrastructure in Scotland “.

How to get to the venue

View the agenda

Expected outcomes:

  • Understanding the policy landscape and how to influence it
  • Identifying problems and solutions to overcome them
  • Mapping the expectations from Industry
  • Demonstrating cutting-edge academic insights
  • Enhanced networks between industry, academia and policy makers

The event is hosted by the Schools of Engineering, Mathematics and GeoSciences together with the Bayes Centre (the University’s Innovation Hub for Data Science and AI) and EPCC (the UK’s National Supercomputing Centre and the UK’s AI Factory Antennae) of the University of Edinburgh.

With the recent launch of Scotland’s Climate Change Plan, the event will focus on the opportunity area “Clean energy-intensive industries”, with particular attention to emerging industries such as data centres. From 2021, the Scottish Government has envisioned hosting Green Data Centres but how can and should Scotland prepare to bring this vision into fruition?

The event will focus on topics that address the technical, regulatory, economic and social obstacles that Scotland must overcome to enable clean energy and data infrastructure. Therefore, in addition to lightning talks by industry leaders, public stakeholders and academic experts, we welcome attendees’ involvement throughout the day to help crystallise important points to inform the path forward.

Venue

Room 2.35
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI)
1 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh EH3 9EF

Use the main entrance to EFI on Lauriston Place, then turn left down the corridor to reach room 2.35.

From 1:30 pm, the activities will continue in Room 1.55

Edinburgh Futures Institute on Google Maps

Agenda

Last updated 14 May. Please note the agenda may be subject to minor changes.

Thursday 21 May

8:45 AM

Registration and initial networking

9:20 AM

Introduction and housekeeping

9:30 AM

Session 1: Policymaker and Industry Talks


Topic 1: Energy Market
Scottish Government
Catherine Williams, Deputy Director, Department of Energy and Climate Change

Apatura Energy
David Wildash, Chief Strategy Officer

Topic 2: Data Centres
Scottish Power
Steven Baker, Commercial Director

Data Vita
Danny Quinn, Managing Director


Topic 3: Waste Heat
Scottish Government
Suzanne LeMiere, Lead Waste Heat and Cost of Energy Heat Networks

Star Refrigeration
David Pearson, Director of Innovation

10:45 AM

Coffee break (20 minutes)

11:05 AM

Session 2: Academic Lightning Talks showcasing current research

Topic 1: Energy Market

Data Centres, Prices, and Location: What Might Modelling Tell Us?
Andrew Lyden

From Forecasts to Decisions: why uncertainty matters in energy markets
Amanda Lenzi


Topic 2: Data Centres

EPCC: UK's first National Supercomputing Centre, leading in High Performance Computing, AI and Data Science expertise
Adrian Jackson and Lorna Smith

Green AI Data Centres: Synergising Computing Loads with Renewable Energy
Wei Sun

Taming the beast: towards making AI more accurate and less power hungry
Alex Serb and Chris Giotis

Emerging technology for disentangling the cooling/water nexus in data centres
Guilio Santori


Topic 3: Waste Heat

Waste heat, thermal energy storage and system integration
Daniel Friedrich

Utilisation of mine workings as data centre waste heat storage
Ian Molnar

From geostructures to abandoned mines: Waste heat storage for low-carbon infrastructure
Melis Sutman

12:30 PM

Networking lunch (1 hour)

1:30 PM

Session 3: Roundtable in-depth discussions
Attendees will split into groups to discuss topics relating to the different aspects of the lifecycle.

  • Renewable Energy
  • Energy Market
  • Data Centres
  • Heat (storage and usage)
  • Societal Co-benefits

3:15 PM

Coffee break (10 minutes)

3:35 PM

Panel Discussion and Q&A: What can Green Data Centres be for Scotland?
Professor Gareth Harrison with industry and policy stakeholders

4:25 PM

Closing words - calls to action and opportunities

4:30 PM

End