From North Ryde to nationwide: is Australia ready for a big data centre future?

New data centres are being constructed across the North Shore and locals have begun to take notice. 

While some see these proposals as just another State Significant Development, others have taken serious issue with the potential development, with concerns over the high demands data centres can have on the energy grid.

Close to home: In North Ryde, a proposal for a data centre has drawn criticism from locals on environmental grounds. 

Local conservation groups, such as Friends of Lane Cove National Park, have taken issue with the centre’s proposed clearing of old growth bushland, as well as its proximity to the national park.

ISPT, who aims to build the centre, says it will have a maximum power consumption of 170 megawatts, which roughly equates to the household usage of a small city. As the centre will be rented to tenants, there is no guarantee that the energy used will be renewable.

But what impacts are these data centres having on the national level?

A big bet: Some argue the burgeoning (and potentially highly lucrative) data centre industry is putting the nation’s transition to renewable energy at risk.

• As the nation rapidly adopts renewable energy with wind, hydro, and solar farms across the country, personal rooftop solar and home batteries are also being installed in millions of households.

• But according to the Climate Change Authority, which advises the government on climate change policy, the current electricity demand of data centres is “contributing to higher emissions than anticipated”.

While data centres can potentially run on 100% renewable energy, if their demand outweighs available supply, they will draw on power generated from fossil fuel power stations.

What is a data centre: Australia is a global leader in the data centre industry — with over 200 centres nationwide. But many Australians may struggle to explain what a data centre actually does. 

• Data centres house the infrastructure necessary to make instant data transmission — i.e. the internet — work, in a highly controlled environment that ensures efficiency and prevents overheating or blackouts. 

• This environment, drawing power for both the operation of computer systems and their cooling, is where the large energy demands of data centres come from.

How will it impact our climate goals?

Joel Gilmore is an associate professor at Griffith University, specialising in energy economics. He told the Lorikeet the risk of data centres comes from their energy demands prolonging the lives of our aging fossil fuel power stations, delaying our transition to a renewable economy.

• “If a new data centre joined the grid tomorrow … we would need to supply them with power. In the very short run, we probably can’t build new renewables in 24 hours. So the way that we would do that is ramp up the output of coal power stations”.

Data centres could have a positive impact on our transition to a renewable economy, Gilmore says, but we need to plan for them properly. 

This means ensuring projects don’t rely on fossil fuel power, and that adequate renewable energy exists prior to the construction of data centres. 

Thumbnail: Sardaka via Wikimedia