Tamar vineyard owners weigh leaving over Firmus 288MW data centre

George Town Council’s approval of Firmus Technologies Pty Ltd’s 288MW AI data centre at Long Reach, on the Tamar River, is now before the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, after the Environmental Awareness Association Inc lodged a 12-ground appeal against the approval, The Examiner reported on 24 October. Firmus has separately appealed conditions the council placed on the project’s back-up diesel generators.

Rowella farmers Peter and Loraine Kossmann, whose property sits roughly 1.2km across the river from the Long Reach site, told the paper they are worried particulates from the generators will reach their vines and cattle. Peter Kossmann said it would be “time to move” if the project proceeds.

Why it matters

The dispute sits across three different bodies that each have a separate role: George Town Council issued the approval, TASCAT is now hearing the challenge to it, and Firmus has filed its own, separate appeal against the generator conditions the council attached. For Rowella and the wider Tamar Valley, a 288MW facility backed by 276 back-up diesel generators is a new kind of neighbour for a district built on vineyards, cattle grazing and river tourism. Nicholla Thompson, the Environmental Awareness Association’s secretary and president, said she and her daughter have put a planned tourism venture on hold while the appeal is unresolved. Fellow objector Anne-Marie Bastian has also questioned how the project can be dealt with under the state’s 1993 planning legislation at all.

For Firmus, the stakes cut the other way. Its own appeal shows the company sees the diesel generator restrictions as a threat to how it can operate the site, independent of whether the EAA’s challenge succeeds. A data centre of this scale needs firm back-up power arrangements to attract and retain hyperscale tenants, so any TASCAT outcome that narrows generator use further would land on the project’s operating economics, not just its approval status.

The numbers

The approved facility is a 288MW AI data centre on the Long Reach site, across the Tamar River from Rowella in the George Town council area. The Environmental Awareness Association’s TASCAT appeal runs to 12 grounds, two of which were detailed in the Examiner’s report: that the council misclassified the project as a utility, and that the notification material on which the approval was based did not disclose the electromagnetic radiation risk. Firmus’s own appeal targets the conditions restricting its diesel generators, which cover the 276 back-up units the Kossmanns fear will drop particulates on their vineyard. Firmus had not commented when the Examiner published.

What’s next

Both appeals, the EAA’s challenge to the council approval and Firmus’s challenge to the generator conditions, are now matters for TASCAT to work through, and no hearing date has been reported. George Town Council general manager Shane Power said the tribunal is the appropriate forum for the planning concerns raised. Until TASCAT rules, the Long Reach approval stands, Firmus’s generator conditions remain in place, and objectors including the Kossmanns, Thompson and Bastian are waiting on a process that could still change what gets built, and how it is powered, at Long Reach. The Long Reach appeal is separate from the financing questions raised about Firmus’s other Tasmanian sites, covered in our report on the Bell Bay, Launceston and Wesley Vale funding inquiry.