One Mid North Coast council is attempting to prepare its community for the predicted data centre boom, driven by concerns over the environment, energy usage and water security.
Ban before the boom: Nambucca Valley Council will seek to ban data centres being built in rural villages, and in some commercial and retail zones.
Data centres are already prohibited in residential zones of the LGA.
Councillor David Jones has called for a 500-metre buffer zone between data centres and homes, schools, hospitals and other community facilities.
“If we can't have a total ban, at least we'll be able to put them in places that are going to have less impact,” Jones told the Mid North Coaster.
Preemptive move: The Nambucca Valley currently has no data centres, with none proposed at this time.
Australia is a top global destination for the industry however, with around 160 operational data centres and hundreds more in the pipeline.
While some regional cities like Tamworth and Coffs Harbour have one, the bulk of recent development has been in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
What is a data centre: A data centre is a facility that stores, manages, and processes large volumes of digital data.
The increase in demand for more facilities is being driven by the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Councillor concerns: Jones’ main concerns about their development in regional areas centre around water security and energy usage.
“We had a water crisis five or six years ago, when we had the last decent drought, and the dam saved us. We were literally using our last reserve,” Jones said.
The councillor also worries the centres could cause energy shortages and price spikes.
So, what's the go with water?: Data centres use electricity to run the computer systems, creating heat.
One way to cool them down is through the use of water, which evaporates and removes heat from the system.
How much water: According to the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), water utilities are receiving requests from data centres for the supply of up to 40 million litres a day, which is equivalent to the usage of about 80,000 households.
According to the 2021 census, there are about 10,000 households in the Nambucca Valley.
Hard to say: The data doesn't exist to forecast exactly how much water one data centre needs because of the differences in size and technology, but according to research from America, a medium-sized data centre uses “as much water as three average-sized hospitals, or more than two 18-hole golf courses”.
Other options available: However, energy market analyst Tristan Edis, director of Green Energy Markets, said options exist for data centres to significantly reduce their water use.
“In terms of cooling, you have options that do involve very large amounts of water consumption, but they are completely avoidable,” he said.
For example, some centres blow the heat away rather than evaporating it.
Energy demand: The energy use is unavoidable however.
Edis said newer data centre proposals “are staggeringly big in terms of the power draw”.
At peak demand, he said four data centres could use all the energy from one coal-fired power station, such as Eraring or Bayswater in the Hunter region.
“There are even data centres proposed at 1000 megawatts, so they could … take up half of the power from a coal-fired power station.”
What power will be used?: Edis said environmental impacts will depend on where data centres get their energy from.
Federal laws on this issue are expected in 2027.
“The development of data centres could support the construction of new renewable energy projects, but also could be quite bad news in terms of carbon emissions if we have to meet their additional electricity demand from extending the life of the coal generators,” Edis said.
Edis also expressed concern about the expanded use of gas to power on-site generators, citing concerns over emissions, air quality and noise.
Image credit: Australian Trade and Investment Commission.