Firmus's $2b Launceston site funded, Bell Bay's 288MW isn't

Firmus Technologies told a Tasmanian parliamentary inquiry this week that its $2b data centre near St Leonards, on Launceston’s southeastern edge, and the first stage of its Wesley Vale project are fully funded, but financing for its largest and most contested proposal, the 288MW Bell Bay AI factory, remains unresolved.

Paul Grusnick, Firmus’s general manager of energy, told the Joint Select Committee on Energy Matters that the Launceston site was fully funded and that Wesley Vale’s first stage was in the same position. He gave no equivalent assurance for Bell Bay, where George Town Council approved a 288MW AI factory in August and Firmus is now appealing conditions attached to its own generation. Wesley Vale’s second stage also depends on capital still to be raised. Greens MP Vica Bayley pressed Firmus on the funding gap during the hearing, part of a wider parliamentary look at energy demand from data centres.

Why it matters

Bell Bay is the single biggest piece of Firmus’s Tasmanian footprint and the one still short of a funding answer. Across St Leonards, Bell Bay and Wesley Vale, Firmus wants roughly 444MW of load, which would make it the state’s largest electricity user. The unresolved Bell Bay appeal leaves the project’s largest load without a clear financial pathway even as the other two sites move ahead. For a state already weighing how much new generation and transmission a single customer should be allowed to demand, that gap between what is funded and what is merely approved is the story.

The numbers

St Leonards carries a $2b price tag and is the only one of the three sites Firmus described to the committee as fully funded. Wesley Vale is being built in two stages of about 26MW each; stage one is funded, stage two is not. Bell Bay’s approved AI factory is rated at 288MW, dwarfing the other two sites combined. Asked about a reported $4b capital raise, Grusnick said the company would keep raising capital through private markets, as it has recently, and would consider public markets in future. The company signed a three year deal with Aurora Energy in March for up to 104MW. It says it will underwrite at least two megawatts of new renewable capacity for every megawatt of Tasmanian load, or about 1,000MW. Firmus told the inquiry it would pay significantly more than the roughly $106 a megawatt hour on Hydro Tasmania’s rate card, and is not seeking a subsidy. The three projects combined are expected to support about 200 direct jobs.

What’s next

Firmus’s appeal over Bell Bay’s generation conditions is still working through the relevant process, and until it resolves, the project’s funding timeline stays open. Wesley Vale’s second stage depends on capital Firmus is still raising through private markets, with a public raise flagged only as a future option. St Leonards, the only fully funded site, is the clearest test of whether Firmus can build what it has financed, while Bell Bay and Wesley Vale’s second stage wait on money that has not yet landed. The committee’s energy demand inquiry continues, with Firmus’s roughly 444MW appetite likely to keep drawing questions about who pays for the generation and transmission it needs, the same inquiry process now examining a separate, unnamed buyer chasing farmland near Sheffield for another AI data centre.