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The federal government has a lot of significant balls up in the air as it tries to navigate a path to regulate data centre growth.

Foreign investment, state and local governments, economic stimulus, net zero targets, water availability, energy suppliers, and social licence are just some of the major considerations it will need to negotiate knowing it will be impossible to keep everyone happy.

Let’s look at snapshots of three different projects that highlight the scope and complexity of some of the data centre plans across Australia.

As recently reported in Watts News, Singapore-headquartered Energy North has put forward a new “mega project” proposal for the Northern Territory, including data centre and ammonia export facilities powered by solar.

To be located at Murranji Station in the NT’s Barkly region, Project Ares includes a hyper-scale data centre campus with a total IT capacity of 1 GW with associated energy generation, energy storage and supporting infrastructure.

In the EPBC Act referral submitted to the DCCEEW, Energy North outlined that it is proposing more than +1GW of gas-fired generation to provide firm power and independent backup, with the “behind-the-meter power architecture designed to transition to renewable-powered operations”.

As the data centre will operate entirely off-grid and will be designed to Tier III availability standard, it “requires guaranteed firm power and a fully independent backup generation source” according to Energy North.

In northern Queensland, AEWC is planning to build the +100 MW Latan Data Centre 24km from Charters Towers and 147km from Townsville within the Flinders REZ corridor.

Central to plans for the Latan Data Centre is on-site solar generation and a battery energy storage system, plus power import via long-term renewable PPAs.

AEWC intends to utilise existing grid connection, “with a scalable pathway to CopperString 2032”, and will meet Tier III and Tier IV availability standards depending on customer requirements. Apparently no gas required.

Closer to an urban environment in Plumpton in Melbourne’s west, plans are underway for the Victorian AI Hub project, a 500-hectare data centre precinct near the 600 MW / 1600 MWh Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub.

Developer Energy Syncline said the first stage - a planned 350-hectare, 2.4 GW AI hub featuring two data centres – will require on-site gas-fired power generation.

The project has already attracted some community opposition with a petition against the development started.

Apart from these expansive, rural to semi-rural projects there is also a fleet of proposed urban data centre developments that will either need to rely on the grid, gensets, or PPAs for their power.