Australia's datacentre backlash has reached federal rulemaking on power and water, wherever it began

On installed capacity, the officials' scale argument holds up. "Australia's datacentre debate is being fought on America's facts," Belinda Dennett, head of the lobby group Data Centres Australia, said in a March speech ^[6]. By her count Australia has 252 centres with 1.4 gigawatts of capacity, and the US has 5,400 with 53.7 gigawatts, though counts of US centres vary ^[7]. Spread across 28 million people, Australia's capacity comes to about 50 watts a head ^[1]. The US figure, across 342.7 million people, is about 157 watts ^[2], roughly three times as much ^[3]. Counted by buildings, the gap narrows: just under one centre per 100,000 Australians against 1.5 per 100,000 Americans, a comparison the Guardian noted Dennett left out ^[8].

The pipeline is a different matter. Construction is speeding up, with several centres of a gigawatt or more in planning ^[14]. The outer Melbourne project alone would be about 1.7 times the country's current capacity ^[4]. Add it and the Northern Territory centre to today's base and Australia would have 5.8 gigawatts, or about 207 watts a person ^[5]. That would put Australia above the present US level, if the planned and installed figures are measured the same way. Rob Nicholls, a digital policy researcher at the University of Sydney, said the Northern Territory centre is the equivalent of 2 million households' annual electricity consumption, in a territory of just over 265,000 people ^[10].

Authority over approvals has been moving up one level at a time. State governments, which the Guardian describes as desperate for economic growth, have welcomed the investment and in some cases overridden local council approval processes because of the size of the projects ^[11]. Canberra's gas plan would take the next step up ^[12]. Each level made a trade-off. The states gave up local consent to land projects; the federal government would give up state discretion over what fuels the load. Dimopoulos said in July: "We are not the United States. Our planning, energy and water systems are much more carefully monitored, managed and regulated." ^[4] On energy, the federal rules meant to do that regulating are still at the planning stage ^[12].

Dimopoulos also made the case that the anger is borrowed. "Because when it's on your phone, you think it's right here, or you think it might just come here," he said ^[5]. Even if he is right, the second federal rule would apply whatever the public mood. Under rules the Guardian reports are planned, operators would have to bring as much new renewable energy into the system as their centre would otherwise take ^[13].

The report does not give a timetable or final text for either rule, so whether projects already in planning would be covered is not yet known. I think that uncertainty sets this quarter's decision. A developer can design for a gas-free, renewable-matched supply now, or cost the project on current terms and risk a redesign if the rules arrive as described ^[12][13]. The second path is cheaper this quarter and pushes the redesign cost into later ones.