source : the age
All of us need power. Not only to heat and cool our homes and our food, to supply us with water and light, but to support the ever-expanding array of communications devices that have become our second life and to store and distribute the information we create using them.
As cloud computing and artificial intelligence become an increasingly pervasive feature of our daily work and leisure, so too does the demand for new layers of infrastructure to support their growth.
For major companies in the AI, construction and technology sectors, this demand represents an immense commercial opportunity, measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. Our federal and state governments are also keenly aware of the investment and revenue-raising potential of data centres being built on these shores.
This week, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was in San Francisco to talk to tech billionaires about how this “boom” – or perhaps it should be called a “rush” – would proceed. Everyone involved is talking a good game, with some tech companies assenting to build data centres at a distance from homes and to add renewable energy to the grid. Marles, who also wears the defence minister’s hat, has cast the whole enterprise as a national security imperative.
Back home, Treasurer Jim Chalmers was confident “the most transformational economic development of our lifetimes” could be achieved with a minimum of risk, “but it will take work”.
It will also take energy – lots of it – in a country already struggling to make the transition to renewables from planet-endangering fossil fuels.
Again, Canberra has sounded a bullish note. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told the National Press Club last month that when it came to the federal government’s target of 82 per cent of all energy coming from renewables by 2030, “data centres aren’t a challenge to [the target]; they’re a pathway to delivery”.
There is a different kind of power in play here. Can the Albanese government or Premier Ben Carroll effectively regulate how and where data centres are built, and what fuels them? Do they have the political will?
This week’s decision by power company Jemena to halt the rollout in Yarraville of far larger power poles to service a West Footscray data centre didn’t happen because of Carroll’s talk of “guardrails … that deliver the best value and amenity for Victorians”. It wasn’t the result of Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece and his counterparts from cities around the world signing the Global Urban Data Centres Pact or his warnings about a “race to the bottom” to secure data centre investment.
It was good old-fashioned people power that forced the installation of 15-metre concrete poles carrying 66,000 volts of electricity to a halt – temporarily, at least. But the impromptu nature of the campaign, beginning in a single suburban street, raises the question: what is the proper address for these objections?
Katie Hall, the local Labor MP, had suggested to some residents that they contact Maribyrnong Council. Its acting chief executive, Mike McIntosh, said it had no power to block or regulate the installations.
Victorian Energy Minister Jaclyn Symes said upgrades to the electricity network were a matter for the Australian Energy Regulator – the same agency Bowen has assigned to decide whether data centres can be let off using renewables for their energy needs.
If this controversy or the pass-the-parcel of responsibility that accompanies it remind us of public disaffection over wind turbines or 5G masts, they come at a very different political moment. With the cost of living (including people’s power bills) rising and house prices dipping, voters are queuing up to give national and state leaders a kick.
Perhaps the only institutions that attract more public ire are power suppliers and big tech, precisely because of our dependence on them.
As we have pointed out before, building a community licence for data centres requires greater transparency and an effective voice in the process for the public. The bland flyer about “improv[ing] network reliability” that Jemena put in Yarraville residents’ letterboxes – and for which it has since apologised – is a case study in the wrong approach.
But it is also vital that this rapidly expanding sector’s contribution to our energy transition comes with genuine accountability. Bowen’s Press Club remarks about “certificates from renewable energy generators to prove that they are fully offsetting their power use” carry troubling echoes of the carbon credits scheme, which our economics editor, Ross Gittins, has called a sham. We need tech giants to build actual renewable energy generation, not swap pieces of paper with those already doing so.
Some will argue that this requirement makes Australia a less attractive destination for data centre development by adding to their costs. But our political leaders need to measure this against the cost of failing to curb emissions and end the fossil fuel era.
If ordinary people are denied the power to affect these decisions in a democracy, our leaders will find the debate over data centres increasingly toxic.
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The Age’s View – Since The Age was first published in 1854, the editorial team has believed it important to express a considered view on the issues of the day for readers, always putting the public interest first.
