EDO urges pause on Tasmanian data centre approvals

Tanner said Firmus proposals in the state were assessed under existing use classes, namely utilities and research and development, which were not designed with data centres in mind. Firmus is the only proponent named in the report. The Latrobe site is covered in our earlier Firmus Wesley Vale Road story.

EDO Solicitor Toby McGregor said developers may try to establish AI data centres before effective regulatory frameworks are in place. He also pointed to poorly planned and poorly consulted projects interstate and overseas that have cost developers billions of dollars, the report said.

The numbers

Per the Pulse Tasmania report, Tanner said public questions to the EDO’s free legal information service on data centres nationwide jumped 250% from January to August.

The EDO’s proposed reforms, as reported by Pulse Tasmania from the inquiry evidence, are the four below. The first is a planning change, the second and fourth concern environmental oversight, and the third concerns energy supply:

• Add data centres as their own use class in the Tasmanian Planning Scheme.
• Automatically refer big data centres for a full environmental impact assessment by the state’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA), with a suggested trigger of 30 or 50 megawatts.
• Make large data centres supply at least 100% new renewable energy before operating, enforceable on every proponent.
• Impose comprehensive, ongoing reporting obligations, particularly on energy and water use.

On the referral trigger, Tanner said data centres are not listed in the 1994 Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act. Under the current settings, she said, referrals happen only because of backup diesel generators, not because the facility is a data centre.

On the renewables requirement, which the EDO wants made enforceable for every proponent, Tanner said the EDO is not aware of any data centre running entirely on renewable energy.

What’s next

Pulse Tasmania’s report does not say what the inquiry will do with the EDO’s submission or when it will report.