Amanda McKenzie

So it's an opportunity for Australia to really think deeply about if we are attractive because we've got great renewables, we've got this stable political environment, we've got land, etc.

How can we help the world get some of these things right?

Well, we're seeing a huge boom in data centres globally, and that includes Australia.

We're one of the top spots for investment in data centres.

So there's 162 data centres already built and 90 projects in development.

So that is obviously a big increase in energy demand, in water demand.

And there's community concerns about other respects of the data centres too.

I think it's still such early days that the focus is sort of shifting as we speak.

Like, obviously, there is an opportunity around investment, but there is also a lens towards community concerns about whether it's water usage or pollution, whether it's noise pollution.

other things that we're hearing coming out of the US in particular that there are concerns about.

So I think it is still that thing of the government's really trying to get a handle on the issue.

So we just did a submission into the New South Wales government process, for instance, they're trying to get a handle on the issue.

So it's a really important time for the community to be heavily engaged in this and speak to government about what our collective expectations are.

The first step is to, I suppose, separate out the data centres from the tech companies.

So the data operators are the ones that are building the centres in Australia and then they're contracting that centre to the American tech companies predominantly, as well as a range of other companies as well.

And so that is where the data centre demand is increasing rapidly.

very quickly.

It's expected to triple by 2030.

So that would be around about 6% of the energy in our main grid.

And to give your listeners a context, that's about all homes in Victoria.