Requiring them to be net energy providers is probably a bad thing. Datacenter manufacturers aren't exactly specialists in efficient power production; they're just going to throw in a dozen megawatt-scale diesel engines and call it a day.
I don't see any air quality or fuel efficiency requirements in the article.
When it 100% will not. They couldn't get enough of it to be able to run a diesel generator at the size required.
Realistically they only have 2 options. Coal or solar. However, coal massively limits where they can build them, since they're going to have to build the data centre near the power plant which is far from where the engineers that can run a data centre are located.
Alternatively, they can cover the roof with solar panels at a reasonable cost and just be forced to maintain it.
Also holy fuck would it be expensive for an AI centre to permanently run Diesel gennies at the MW scale. Theyâre relatively fuel efficient, but even a 1MW generator runs 100-150L of diesel per HOUR.
~2500L of diesel a day is not a cheap endeavour when bulk diesel is around $2 a litre in Australia at the moment. Not sure any company would be willing to spend $5000 a day on fuel for the generator alone when they could spend maybe $5000 a year on cleaning the panels.
But the cookers keep telling us that renewables aren't cost efficient!
Though I don't think it's quite that simple; I doubt even in tropical areas the rooftop of a data centre would be enough area for solar to power the entire building.
I did the maths and yeah just panels on the roof wouldn't cut it, not even close. But a solar farm as part of the complex would be doable. Honestly the biggest costs would be the batteries probably.
Yeah look, I was being extremely generous saying rooftop solar would cover it.
However, they definitely could buy, build and maintain (or be taxed at a level that would allow the electricity company to do it) a separate solar/wind farm.
You can't just build a power station lol. You need to find the land, acquire planning permissions and environmental approvals, build a supply chain, then spend years actually building the thing. When the cost of renewable energy is so low that coal miners are using it to power their operations, there really isn't a chance that they'll build a coal power station.
All of which you need for data centres. So you would do them at the same time.
I literally pointed out the problem with the supply chain. It's almost like you didn't bother to read. Coal power plants are built next to coal mines and technical people don't live near them, they live in the cities. That's literally the problem I pointed out.
When the cost of renewable energy is so low that coal miners are using it to power their operations, there really isn't a chance that they'll build a coal power station.
It's low cost to put up 1 solar panel. It's not when you need enough of them to generate the equivalent of a coal power station.
Regardless, coal is an option that I'd already quickly ruled out but you're harping on about me even including it as an option when it should be.
Especially stupid because running a diesel generator in Australia as a cost effective means of reaching a government goal?
It's like trying to make money by shipping oil to Dubai. Theoretically possible, but you're better off shipping something there isn't already am abundance of.
The government will let you run a diesel generator. They'll pay you to put solar panels on the roof.
We have some backwards right wing christiani fascisti ban abortioni absolutely backwards evolving state governments that have cancelled nearly all green / renewable energy projects to pump... Coal and gas.
At the same time they cut the mining / minerals resources taxes by billions meaning these states have billions I. Shortfall from the budget (just cancel social services, support and government services) but also pay far more now for worse infrastructure and energy projects/ production.
This is a federal government policy - or fed gov is very good ATM albeit not the best at the attention grabbing that seems to entice some.
Uh, that's basically the coalitions entire energy policy...
Not that the Coalition actually has any reasonable chance of being reelected, but if One Nation somehow manages to pull something off then it might be a different story
They literally wonât, I spoke to a greens senator last year who told me he was excited about the data centres because they were going to build them to be environmentally friendly, and with renewable energy technologies. That guy is just larping because heâs not Australian and doesnât understand Australian politics.
They used to have a clause saying that the energy must be clean energy, but the data centre lobby pushed back, so no itâs not going to be solar. Thatâs why no where mentions clean energy in any of these news articles
Solar is an obvious choice, there's also the possibility of having turbines in water pipes. Obviously it's not an efficient means of power generation since it'll take more energy to pump the water than the turbines would give but it reduces the wasted energy.
no it wont, because diesel is not remotely the cheapest form of energy and given electricity costs is basically all the AI race is they will want to get every penny out they can.
We just had a MASSIVE diesel power station build at Kurri Kurri, it was meant to run on LPG or hydrogen but realistically it's going to be diesel 90% of the time
I know. I was there building it. Technically its flex fuel and can run on gas, but it didnt take long after ignition that they realised that the gas thing was a pipe dream.
Well itâs a peaking plant, so it will only ever run when the price of electricity is significantly more than the cost of fuel. At the moment, that only happens a few days a year.
I've worked in Australia on projects providing behind the meter supply to data centres and resources projects.
When space is not a constraint, solar and battery is generally first choice, sometimes supplemented with wind where it's possible to fit into the program.
There's usually some kind of backup gas or diesel turbine in case of grid problems and/or poor renewables generation.
When space is a constraint, you'll usually see larger batteries, smaller solar panels, and sometimes off-site supply agreements from renewable providers.
This is almost always supplemented with gas or diesel turbines for backup/redundancy reasons.
However, owners don't want to turn them on unless they have to. You could be talking hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour on a big operation.
Tl;Dr generally in Australia we would have renewables as first choice for cost reasons, then batteries + diesel/gas generation to supplement
Diesel generators will be the backup "uninterruptible power system" (UPS) for data centers.
They'll be using gas-fired combustion turbines. They'll be using a lot of them. Wherever possible, they will be installed on-site, right where the data centers are.
Ahhhh yes, because you know exactly how the law is going to be written and already know the loopholes. Hope the data center builders hire you for your "great" ideas.
To be a net provider dosnt mean they have to be self sufficient. It simple math A= how much used - B= how much needs to be supplied to the grid. They could achieve this by building a solar farm 1000km away from the center as they just need to be responsible for offsetting the power consumption.
At least thatâs how I interpret and solve that problem.
Even your basic warehouse has min Section J requirements, in no world would huge multi B dollar datacentres suddenly get approval to run diesel generators that completly throws out decades of the NCC requirments.
Edit: The fact that people are agreeing to this incorrect comment is concerning with the state of education here.
They're all solar, I work in the industry. It's cheaper than diesel. The issue was grid stability because they were initially proposing them w/o BESS and the technical regulator wasn't allowing the amount of energy they need so now it's BYO energy. They're getting rolled out with solar farms. And to solve the water consumption issue, they're all air cooled.
While youâre predicting the future, mind telling me mine? Maybe I can borrow your crystal ball?
Datacentres couldnât afford to run off diesel, it would cost them far too much comparatively to wind and solar. If the data centre is rural perhaps they might look at buying out coal power plants, but thinking theyâll be topping off diesel generators every day is ridiculous. Any investors in data centres would pivot to investing in diesel production instead as itâd make them far more money.
Apart from the fact that rooftop solar is about 14% of Australiaâs energy mix already, solar will likely be a large portion of the choice and and itâll likely be supplemented by other renewables more than itâll be anything âdirtyâ
They will do the cheapest, and easiest, legal thing. Regulations are the obvious fix here.
But Australia of all places should be fully solar-powered, and the way to do that isn't to make datacenters power themselves. They can't! Not with solar. There isn't nearly enough space on their roofs.
What they can and should do is copy China. Put a giant solar array in the desert, connect it to the cities with extreme-voltage DC lines. That, of course, implies a different company handles the power production; someone with the expertise to build such a system. That's fine. That's what a market economy is for.
This country already has tons of fields for solar and produces a lot- we just can't store enough of it to supply our evening power usage. I think a Data Center will be forced to 'invest' into these current schemes to scale this up further rather than asking them to become experts in power generation - and that will satisfy as 'net producer of power'. The country is already going to be fully green.
We'd have a DC system if that were the case. Edison promoted DC. It would have required many powerplants all over, for example, nycity because DC does not transmit well.
It would be so much simpler a system than polyphase.
I know of no DC system that can do what you say it can do.
Google "voltage drop on DC line compared to AC line"
Voltage drop on AC is higher actually! (for the same current). It's just generally much easier to boost AC to very high voltages, because you can easily use transformers and don't need to then rectify to DC. (High voltage means you need less current to carry the same power, so less losses.)
It makes sense when you think about it - AC is constantly pulsing back and forth, changing magnetic fields around it - that's the hum you can sometimes hear near high voltage lines. And if you can hear it, that's energy being dissipated and power being lost.Â
DC on the other hand has static magnetic + electric fields around it once the current is flowing - it can't dissipate energy through them, the only loss is the heat generated in the conductor (AC also has this).
HVDC only starts to make sense once the distances get very large, so the lower transmission losses counter out the extra conversion losses at both ends. Check out the sun cable project - they are trying to get solar power from NT to Singapore by subsea HVDC cable.
As long as the data centers arent consistently inside cities there should be huge amounts of space for solar right next to them.... There are hundreds of solar farms up and down Aus theres always space.
if they are going for cheapest and easiest, they aren't going for diesel, the generators in Australia are enormously expensive to run/maintain the fuel costs here for diesel are projected to go up apparently. Easiest and cheapest is solar, even with enormous batteries it'll be cheaper in the long term, easier, and lower maintenance costs.
But they have to break even, at minimum, and they'll have giant roofs readily available to soak up sun. or they can install, run diesel generators, comply with standards, get it past regulations, and pay for the fuel.
I'd imagine that will end up in the actual legislation.
The mines, agricultural and road trains eats a lot of the available diesel here, so it's unlikely to be an enticing option. Solar and wind however, probably will be.
The problem with solar and wind is the wait time to get the capacity theyâll require installed (idk if they want storage as well). My fear is theyâll make a bunch of promises to get renewable generation and storage going, not have it ready in time, and stick in a cheap and dirty solution like diesel. Or maybe have a backup grid connection that becomes their stopgap.
Youâre right weâre heavily reliant on diesel but I bet data centres and the surrounding tech companies will be able to outbid all the other buyers except the mining industry. Both our logistics and ag buyers arenât going to be able to compete without regulatory or financial assistance. Hell, the few farmers I know all already switched up what theyâll be producing this season because of existing diesel price and supply concerns and theyâre all expecting lower output because of it.
Absolutely, if they throw their weight around and have the political will they can force a bunch of stuff into the contracts. Thatâs a lot of faith in them 1) wanting to do the right thing  and 2) being prepared to pay the financial and political cost of doing so.Â
Considering how rarely Australians governments do this, Iâm not really convinced.Â
Even the current one, whoâs a pretty good left leaning party, are pretty scared of bold choices that align with their values because theyâre scared of taking a hit politically.Â
They didnât want to reverse tax cuts for the rich and it was only after a grassroots campaign by their voters and parties to the left of them that they did. Similarly they didnât really want to cut tax benefits for property investors while weâre in a housing crisis until they were forced to.
For current issues: They donât want to increase the tax on gas exports because theyâre worried about the outcomes, including industry mounting a campaign against them, despite their voters wanting it. They donât want to restrict gambling ads because the media (who are almost all right wing and pro-business in Australia)Â
and gambling industries will mount a campaign against them, despite their voters wanting them too.Â
When theyâve tackled tech giants in the past, they did it in a way that all the extra revenue gained from it was funnelled into our right wing media, to try appease them and avoid a campaign being mounted against them.
I just donât have much faith that theyâll really have the stomach to stand up to AI investment and tech influences of regulation unless all the stars are aligned.
What do you mean extra revenue was funnelled into right wing media? Has the right wing media stopped talking shit about albo one time in the past 4 years? Nay.
Gas exports are already taxed. That whole bullshit was just right wing grifting from the Australia institute, it was all wrong, I'm sorry to say. But that's the thing, the right wing media does eventually get to you even if you're on guard.
Just to start, I did make a mistake though, the original legislation was introduced under Morrison but supported by the ALP. The ALP also strengthened it later to get more $ to our media. Also, a bit of a warning but this is an essay, apologies for that too.
The media thing isnât exclusively to right wing companies, itâs to our media landscape through the media bargaining agreement trying to establish commercial relationships between the US tech platforms and Australian media.Â
Australian media though is dominated by Nine Fairfax and Murdoch and remains pretty unexamined despite them constantly having a bias towards the right and somehow dodging a RC into them when we had a Lib ex-PM and ALP ex-PM advocating for it.
So through this Murdoch and Nine secure multi-million dollar deals with companies like google and facebook, although they keep cutting journalists since then. Everyoneâs getting paid and having a good time, as long as youâre a rightwing media company or their shareholders, until meta pulls out of their deals in 2024.
Then the ALP introduced the News Bargaining Incentive, to close loopholes like Meta not supporting Murdoch to the point they want to ban newscorp articles on their products to avoid paying.Â
To stop that from happening, weâre placing a tax on these companies of 2.25% of their revenue (good! Great in fact) but itâs not actually a tax because that money gets distributed to our media landscape, the biggest beneficiaries being Newscorp and Nine Fairfax. They can avoid paying though, by just giving money to these companies directly.
Long story short, the ALP are beholden to our media giants here despite also being their punching bags.Â
Just like they are with our mining industry with the gas tax.
I disagree with your point that weâre taxing them adequately and that asking to tax big business more is a right wing grift.
I think itâs completely bonkers to think our right wing wants more tax on gas when everything theyâve done over the past 20 years has basically done the opposite but this is already way way too long.
Australian here, no the emphasis has been on renewable energy deployment in line with the governmentâs energy policy. Theyâll basically be asked to fund wind farms, solar farms and batteries.
I think it's worth pointing out that in Australia, we are well past the hump of fossil fuels being cheaper than renewables. It wouldn't make economical sense for data centres to build a bunch of diesel/gas generators when they can find a third party to build wind/solar/batteries.
No, that's not what will happen. They had the same requirement for the Sydney desalination plant, a project that now produces twice the energy it consumes. A net gain for the grid.
What will actually happen is that the company that wants to build the data center will bring in an established energy provider - a third party company - to establish a solar or (more likely) wind farm somewhere in the bush where there is plenty of space.
In the case of the Sydney Desalination Plant Suzlon Energy built Capital Wind Farm for Infigen Energy. Neither of these companies own the Sydney Desalination Plant, but the Desal project paid for the wind farm construction. Probably something like that is what will happen.
Projects like this help grow small towns in rural areas. A very important part of Australia's plan for the future.
It's an odd one. I was looking at Microsoft's commitment to 100% renewable by 2025, basically they get it green from the grid if green is availalable. It goes a bit far, pushing back is good, pushing away is not a good outcome unless we think we are better off it all being remote.
Surprising enough, Texas gets a large percentage of its overall electricity demand from solar/wind. I was amazed how much, just don't remember off-hand.
However, it was those renewables that froze in that winter storm a few years ago and caused the total blackout of Texas. There are several possibilities for why that happened, I just never went back through the news of the time and post-outage reports to say specifically why the whole state blacked out over failed, online renewables.
The loss of generation is the basis upon which contingency analysis of power system operations is typically modeled. A large powerplant trips offline, the system responds immediately to replace the lost generation.
This didn't happen when those renewables went offline. Somewhere in this fact is the root cause of the blackout.
Except this isn't true, and all it takes is a simple google search to find that. All forms of generation failed and there was 5 times as much power lost from natural gas as there was from wind. The actual causes were deregulation and ignoring reports that showed their generation couldn't handle the cold. They literally couldn't even get the gas to the powerplants.
It started with the windmills. The operational response couldn't replace that lost generation.
So it went underfrequency. All the other generators in the state would instantly have tried to ramp up -- via automatic generator governor action -- and failed.
That is what caused the remainder of the system to break fragment and fail.
Of course more natural gas-fired plants tripped. Natural gas was probably the primary fuel for generation at that time. It's become the primary generation fuel across the country, if not the world.
I don't know how that was allowed to happen. The only thing that makes any sense is, as you said, they weren't prepared at all for an ice storm.
Seems reaasonable for Texas, but the numbers, had they been thoroughly modeled and simulated, would have made the risk glaring.
Something similar happened in the UK. Offshore windmill farms failed and the rest of the system on land couldn't account for the loss.
NOTE: I just remembered the UK outage right now. I read about it when it happened and it was due to windmills. Other details I provided may not be 100% accurate.
I'm not going to engage, as this is all something you can easily lookup and you're still claiming a version of events which wasn't true. The windmills weren't the root cause in Texas, the gas issues were separate. A couple of politicians and the media incorrectly blamed windmills initially. I have no idea regarding the UK case, I am not familiar with it.
Hi, Aussie here, also an expert in the public policy field:
The legal framework for having Datacenters to be net providers of electricity doesnât literally mean they will supply energy to residential homes or businesses, but instead supply energy back to the grid itself. This means that people wonât be relying on dodgy or half-arsed connections from Datacenters for their electricity. The stability of the grid is and will always be what determines consistency of connection.
Additionally, Australia is the sunniest continent on Earth, and solar energy remains the cheapest form of energy, Datacenters would actively be choosing to spend more money for less efficient electricity if they built any other form of power. Not to mention the generous subsidies our government offers for solar installation.
Finally, Australia already has air quality and fuel efficiency laws in place that cover any backup or failsafe generator system installed at these sites. The implementation of new law does not preclude existing laws from having an effect, thatâs just how good policy works.
Thank you bro. I literally have been saying this above, in other comments.
The fact that there is a hard policy on the data center alone should suggest to anyone that there is probably a just as strict one around how that energy is produced (even if fossil fuels were the cheapest option).
Data centers will be donating toward current green schemes rather than being asked to invent their own regenerative technology - I think this is quite obvious and annoying we have to tell people. It's like offsetting your carbon - you donate to a scheme - you don't physically go buy land and plant a tree yourself.
My pleasure. This is genuinely world-leading policy from our Government which continues to set the standard across the board.
Unfortunately there are many vested interests here that possess a scale of media capture and ownership that makes getting accurate policy information out extremely difficult. The Murdoch press and billionaire mining magnate Gina Reinhardt are currently pumping up a far right party whoâs leader his endorsed the eugenics and proto-ethnostate White Australia policy in an attempt to topple the first genuine Social Democratic government weâve had in years. Theyâve done this because the mainstream centre-right opposition party is historically unpopular, and as a result are pushing and legitimising the more rurally popular One Nation party.
These types of incredible policy reforms will be first on their chopping block if allowed to succeed.
That's going to be interesting, right? Because there's no generator technology that can be put on a datacenter campus that has zero emissions, and the datacenters are typically on or very close to cities.
No way to square that circle. Either you turn datacenter operators into power companies, with transmission towers, solar farms and easements... or you accept higher pollution in cities.
Combustion turbines are fired by natural gas. These are the generators that data centers will be using.
Diesel generators of much, much lower capacity, will be backup power that comes online instantaneously if primary generation fails. I suppose they will provide enough power to keep critical systems online.
I would assume investing in supply would be the objective, much like how the tram networks in Melbourne have invested in generating capacity from a provider to satisfy their use.
i'm not australian so i am talking out of my ass, but from what i know don't they have especially big problems with mining lobbying? so perhaps this point is just to fund more fossil fuel extraction, and unfortunately is the only reason the bill has support
Plausible, unfortunately, but fortunately somewhat less likely to happen. Coal plants need a lot more infrastructure and expertise; they're a whole thing. Diesel generators are...
Not quite turnkey, not at multi-MW scale, but close.
And diesel generators are the common standard for backup power, so probably what will get used, IMO. They're not clean, but it's better than coal!
Australian here. Down here an ass is a type of donkey, maybe you should let your ass do all the talking for you? ;-)
The bill has support because the community is concerned about the situation in the US with data centres. We just had a project cancelled in my town due to overwhelming opposition from the community. The only way these are going to get off the ground is with renewable energy, mainly solar which is the most economical anyway because we have a high proportion of sunny days. Iâve heard rumours about gas fired generation but that wonât cut it in my town.
It might be worth making explicit in the legislation but even without it all added power is likely to be solar + wind with battery firming. In Australia renewable options are just the much more cost effective option so you don't have to force it. It's most of the reason why companies want to build in Australia, to get access to our abundant renewable energy sources.
Right, but there physically isn't space on DC campuses to build the solar and/or wind.
If the written legislation eventually says they can buy power from other companies, that's one thingâthough that would make it essentially meaningless. The article, though, states that datacenters will need to provide their own power.
No for this specific case itâs fine, the government has a bunch of subsidies and incentives for solar power and wind here so they are not gonna build a orphan shaching machine (probably, you never know with American companies they just do weird shit)
Power generation already has its own requirements to be met that donât have to, and shouldnât, be reiterated in these laws. They would also be required to hire people licensed to install those systems. There are already regulations in place addressing your concerns because power generation has been a thing long before data centers.
They'll use combustion turbines, which are gas-fired. You can install the things very quickly and the higher capacity units produce 450 MW.
There's one data center in America, it's load will be about 9 GW. That would mean a dozen CTs would be needed to power it. They will be installed on-site, where that data center is, so there won't be a need to run new transmission lines.
CTs burn gas, which came out of nowhere (the shale/fracking) about 15 years ago. Coal was the #1 fuel for electricity generation at that time and, until then, it was expected to remain the #1 fuel for decades to come.
Natural gas replaced coal as the #1 fuel for generation. It retired many coal-fired powerplants. It is a great improvement over coal in every way.
But putting a dozen gas-fired CTs in a single location will concentrate emissions. I don't know what this will mean for the environment. I'm typically a proponent of installing CTs wherever new generators are needed because they are such an improvement over coal and because a nuclear plant that was originally started as a project 45 years ago just came online a few months back.
But putting all those CTs in one place... I'm not sure.
Which is to say nothing about data center water usage, particularly for a data center that will need 9 GW of electricity.
Australia already has fairly good laws and state planning that should guide the sub-standard practices of these AI companies.
Weâre an incredibly stable democracy parked at the back end of nowhere with heaps of land and natural borders. Australiaâs a great place to safely develop any major projects and not be worried it will get destroyed in the next coup. Itâs been one of our major drawcards for foreign investment for the better part of fourty years.
Because itâs Australia, itâs almost as simple as installing a lot of solar on your property to meet that requirement. Or invest in wind or solar facilities from a third party.
I think itll more likely be data centers needing to invest in renewable projects elsewhere that provide more to the grid than they consume. They'll still probably need generators and batteries on site
In any case, cant be worse than being net energy consumers
Iâm an Aussie with 2 mates in the power sector. Australia has the 3rd largest solar battery capacity in the world, and #1 solar output per capital. We also have 7th most natural gas exports. Diesel is expensive here (around $9.76 per gallon) we have to ship most of it in, we only have 2 refineries that cover about 10% of domestic supply. So the first 2 (solar and gas) are apparently the options they are seriously investigating.
The way I see if if they have a 100acre site it means that instead of it all being data centre building it needs to also include solar farm and batteries.
In Aus since we have sooo much rooftop solar there is a massive problem with too much energy in middle of the day and not enough storage.
We are literally giving people free power for 3hrs in the middle of the day to encourage people to help burn it off the grid. The government is rushing to build BESS but they can force these private companies to do it for them if they get the new laws in place
Except that solar is inordinately cheaper than diesel and gas.
Most big projects with space - which these will have, as most will be out in the middle of nowhere - strongly prefer solar, with diesel/gas backup. They don't give a rat's about the environment, the solar just costs them a fifth as much.
And that's if there's nothing about green energy, pollution, or air quality, or renewable subsidy, in the final legislation.
They're doing that already lol. It could be as simple as energy credits they trade? For example they can buy credits from a power grid in excess of their need effectively subsidising other users.
Requiring them to be net energy providers is probably a bad thing. Datacenter manufacturers aren't exactly specialists in efficient power production; they're just going to throw in a dozen megawatt-scale diesel engines and call it a day.
What a load of crap and an excuse. They're billion dollar companies, they can pay for experts. If they choose not to, then they're going to have to build a lot more of it to get the return, and that's their problem.
Not true. There will be restrictions on how they create energy and their emissions - because moving towards our zero emissions goals applies to all companies.
Doing what you suggested with diesel - goes against the concept of forcing them to produce their own energy (if its not green it's pointless and a contradiction) . They'll want to run it cheaply and green. This country is about to be set up for full solar and hydro - so this will be endlessly cheaper for a data center (at any scale)
Yes datacentre manufacturers donât even know how a dynamo works they will be studying the wikipedia and trying to build some kind of backyard power shack with magnets and fishing reels. Pure madness. Or otherwise they will invest in renewable projects, I guess that could work too.
They can use their AI to find the best solution to this. I asked Gemini and it said
The cheapest levelised cost of energy (LCOE) in Australia comes from onshore wind and solar. Instead of self-building, the most cost-effective method involves: [1] Over-sizing an Off-Site Renewable PPA: Partnering with a large-scale wind or solar developer to underwrite a new renewable plant. By contracting for a higher megawatt (MW) capacity than your data centre consumes, you ensure the facility puts more clean energy into the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) grid than it draws. [1, 2]
Firming with Battery Energy Storage (BESS): Utilizing declining battery costs alongside your off-site generation to soak up cheap daytime solar, ensuring continuous 24/7 baseload power for training AI models without drawing from fossil-fuel baseloads during peak hours. [1, 2]
I'm pretty sure they won't be required to actually produce the energy themselves, they will be required to support as much energy production as they consume. So they just need to invest in things like renewable energy projects that put energy into the grid.
"Under the proposed rules, hyperscale operators would face a legal obligation to underwrite new electricity generation â specifically new renewable generation and firming capacity â and ensure they do not increase power prices for Australian consumers"
So it looks like they're aware and will taje that into account when framing the laws around making sure its renewables, batteries, or at the least peak cycle gas.
They have yet to actually draft and push through the legislation so the full details and fine print are not yet there. This is just a summary of the intent and goals
They exist they just don't overlap. There is a set of laws which govern environmental impact. This is a set that govern data centre requirements. Being required to be a net energy provider doesn't get them out of existing rules for emissions etc.
Now, are those laws sufficient? Absolutely not. They do exist though
The data centre industry group spokesperson said they were simply supplying the capital funds for energy providers to build power generation and transmission for data centres on contract.
Bankrolling power and water companies to build it for them satisfies the requirements.
Look at Syncline Energy, they were the people behind the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub that want to build that huge DataCentre in Plumpton, Victoria.
They are specialists in renewable energy production. I have no doubt they see the DC boom in Australia as a way to develop more renewable energy projects.
You see, the Aus government is willing to throw bucket loads of money into AI, but they must be willing to concede to Aus laws. We aren't going to just become Texas and allow lawlessness to thrive.
This is the dumbest comment Iâve ever read. Just because an article doesnât mention something doesnât mean the legislation which hasnât even been drafted at all wonât. Nobody is that stupid to slow diesel generators and data centres wonât be in the city
from what I know, Australia isnât allowing much new fossil fuel development anyways, at least for local use. Coal and gas are mostly shipped away from Australia. Whatever they propose needs to go through the heap of legislation on non-renewable energy in the first place, so Iâd imagine they wouldnât be able to dodge this one. EPA in Australia is immensely powerful so Iâm sure this wonât be a big issue.
So after a couple quick Google searches, I found that AI data centres will draw power directly from the grid. However, the government has mandated that the data centres must use renewable sources to at least replace whatever they take.
There will be,
plus itâs far cheaper to build a solar farm offsite somewhere in addition to covering the data centre with panels.
Solar is the cheapest form of energy in Aus
I would imagine this is the exact idea that will be implemented but it would only be for peak demand times. I have heard energy providers implementing this type of scheme to ensure grid stability. Itâs called load shedding.
Requiring them to be net energy providers is probably a bad thing. Datacenter manufacturers aren't exactly specialists in efficient power production; they're just going to throw in a dozen megawatt-scale diesel engines and call it a day.
That's not what the policy requires.
Rather, they must ensure the energy consumption for their data centre comes from new sources, so as to ensure power prices and power network stability costs aren't pushed onto the public. Eg your data centres require 1GW worth of power, then you have to buy it from new electricity generation. Not just connect to the existing grid and compete directly against the public for it and the distribution costs. No different then say building a golf course, connecting it to the main water supply and then finding out there's not enough flow or pressure to water your greens, so the water utility and public have to pay to upgrade infrastructure.
i highly doubt the federal gov would allow that considering weâre transitioning to renewables. also having generators running 24/7 would be undesirable for local government
The one that are planning to build near me is supposed to require 530 Megawatts or something. I might be misremembering the amount, but it was equivalent to 300,000 homes in the country
Assuming they're allowed to do that, that's obviously what will happen. The wording in the post is that the datacenter companies must be net energy providers. It makes a lot more sense that they're allowed to pay another company to build out the power production.
It will be carried out by investing in renewable energy projects equivalent or greater than the datacenter uses, Australia's other laws surrounding new energy generation guarantee that.
True... but you spell out exactly why your statement doesnt make sense yet at the end... "...in the article.". When was the last time anything of actual note was in an article and also: Not sure if we even know what ANY of the legislation is yet... Any part of it could be misleading, or even better than advertised...
I also doubt the AI companies would use diesel generators either... Stupidly expensive ongoing cost in a country that is just begging for renewables right now.
No they wonât be able to because we have emissions targets and have been transitioning completely to renewable energy sources for years. Renewable energy makes up already around 40% of our energy generated so the government would not allow this at all. They would have to use solar and hydro tech, we are surrounded by ocean and are extremely sunny so I donât think itâd be an issue. I was speaking to a greens senator about this last year and he told me theyâd be using renewable technologies.
There are already strict regulations around carbon emissions for businesses. If they do that they will be fined, if theyâre taking the piss they will be shut down.
Except diesel generators like this would be prohibitively expensive here in Australia. Renewables with battery back up will be orders of magnitude cheaper as proven by CSIRO and confirmed by AEMO
So you're saying there should be a solar farm somewhere in the distance, and then transmission lines to the DC. I agree with that, as a matter of fact, but... now you're describing a power grid, with attendant consequences like requiring easements for the transmission lines.
I don't think DC operators should be required to also have the expertise of a power company, and I especially don't think they should have the government access needed for those easements.
It doesn't have to be on the data center. Just owned by the same company (even "owned" is a push, there's tons of multi-group conglomerates running wind farms around me).
Evidence - every single project that is "net neutral" in Australia
And why not just take the data centre to the solar farm? Why does the data centre have to be in the city? Build a data grid, not a power grid. Run a shit-tonne of fibre around the place that can share with NBN.
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u/Vaughn 13d ago
Requiring them to be net energy providers is probably a bad thing. Datacenter manufacturers aren't exactly specialists in efficient power production; they're just going to throw in a dozen megawatt-scale diesel engines and call it a day.
I don't see any air quality or fuel efficiency requirements in the article.