Australia should learn from the mistakes of the resources boom and set the terms for the AI and datacentres boom, the assistant minister for the digital economy, Andrew Charlton says.<\/p>\n
Growth in datacentres has exploded in the past two years, Charlton told the Sydney Institute on Wednesday night, with 44 projects in the pipeline in New South Wales alone seeking 11GW of capacity on the electricity grid.<\/p>\n
Datacentres currently use about 2% of the national electricity market \u2013 the equivalent of 700,000 homes \u2013 but that is rising, he said, with demand doubling in Victoria and rising 18% in NSW in the past year.<\/p>\n
Against that meteoric rise, Charlton said, datacentres have become \u201cone of the most contested pieces of infrastructure in the world\u201d. Advocates say they could bring a new wave of economic value while critics say they are \u201cgiant sheds \u2026 creating few jobs and risking some of the same mistakes we made in the resources boom\u201d.<\/p>\n
Charlton said both sides contain important truths, but the boom was happening regardless.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s accelerating. And it\u2019s likely to be larger and more consequential than anything we\u2019ve lived through in recent decades,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In an apparent reference to comments made by independent senator David Pocock this week<\/a>, Charlton said some of the response to the datacentre boom is \u201crightly or wrongly\u201d shaped by the resources boom, in particular gas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had abundance \u2013 but we didn\u2019t lock in our advantage early enough. We built for export before securing supply at home,\u201d he said. \u201cWe became one of the largest gas exporters on earth and then watched households and factories pay more for gas dug up beneath their feet.\u201d<\/p>\n Guardian Australia has reported on the growing concerns on energy use<\/a>, water use<\/a>, and the locations<\/a> where the centres are planned to be built. Charlton said those concerns were legitimate.<\/p>\n He said the Australia government, learning from the growing backlash in the United States and other countries to datacentres using more water and resulting in higher electricity bills for residents nearby to the datacentres, would institute a so-called \u201ctriple lock\u201d for datacentre development.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n That is: datacentres must bring new and renewable energy supply to offset demand; pay their full share of network infrastructure cost so it is not passed on to consumers; and provide demand flexibility and cooperate with market operators to strengthen the grid.<\/p>\n Belinda Dennett, the chief executive of Datacentres Australia, told ABC Radio National that datacentre operators were already \u201cvoluntarily\u201d offsetting 70% of their energy use by underwriting new renewable energy projects.<\/p>\n She said while they \u201cwould love to meet the 100% offset requirement\u201d,there was a mismatch in timelines for datacentres and renewable energy projects.<\/p>\n \u201cDatacentres can be built within three years. A renewable energy project, seven to 10 years. So are we asking operators and their customers to sign agreements for a project that won\u2019t commence until seven years after the datacentre is built?\u201d Dennett said.<\/p>\n