The biggest data centre in Australia – more than twice the size of anything that has come previously – is to be built in South Australia because of the state’s “clean energy abundance”, and because it will have already reached its target of reaching 100 per cent “net” renewables.
The U.S.-based Iren – a specialist in industrial-scale data centres and AI – announced overnight that it planned to build its 800 MW data centre near the Bundey sub-station around 75 kms north-east of Adelaide. Media reports put the cost of the centre at around $10 billion.
It has chosen the site because the area is unpopulated, is at the cross roads of major transmission lines, and right in the heart of a maze of wind projects that is making the state grid the greenest in the planet.
And it seen as a deeply significant announcement, both for its implications for wind, solar and battery projects, the success of South Australia’s green grid, and because it could have a “domino” effect on other players because of its size, and its first mover advantage at this scale.
The announcement vindicates the claims of the state government, and its transmission operator, that its green credentials and low wholesale electricity prices are attracting multi-gigawatts of new industry enquiries.
