2026-05-27
The Greens NSW have welcomed, with alarm, the Data Centre report by Greenpeace, ‘Energy Vampires: The AI Data Centres draining Australia’. The report finds that the frenzied rollout of AI data centres in Australia is rushing through massive new projects, which will derail Australia’s energy transition unless the government urgently intervenes, and that there are early signs of a data centre-fuelled gas boom in Australia, which will come with massive, nationally significant climate costs.
This is exactly why Greens NSW secured support to establish a parliamentary inquiry into data centre developments in NSW, the first of its kind in Australia.
Quotes attributable to Abigail Boyd MP, Greens NSW MLC and Chair of the Public Accountability and Works Committee which is inquiring into Data Centres in NSW:
“I forced the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to admit that way back in 2024 they formally warned the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Sharpe, that data centre developments were going to directly imperil us meeting our legislated emissions reduction targets. The NSW Labor government, after hearing that advice, decided to put their foot on the accelerator.
“We are seeing playing out in NSW right now the reality of the fossil-fuelled data centre boom. The NSW Labor Government has opened Western NSW for fracking, including in the largest freshwater supply in Australia, the Great Artesian Basin, while reducing application fees for petroleum exploration licences by 98%. We’re now seeing the Minister for Energy trying to pass legislation that would prioritise new gas generation projects in the planning system.
Referring to Cloud Carrier’s proposed gas-fired power project, to power their planned Southern Highlands Data Centre, Boyd said “Right now, there is a data centre project being considered by the planning system that would, if approved, wipe out the entirety of NSW projected 2028 emissions cuts.
“The latest Gas Statement of Opportunities report expected a reduction in gas demand to serve existing energy demands and future electrification. The rush to open new gas projects can only be for the purposes of serving newly introduced demand from these massive AI data centre projects. In fact, just over a month ago AEMO increased their projections for the expected data centre energy demand.
“Climate impacts of these projects must be paramount. But right now, the Labor government is choosing Big Tech and Fossil Fuel industries, not community health, safety and wellbeing, and locking us into a fossil fuel intensive, climate disastrous future.
“While big tech is promising us the moon, it could end up costing us the earth.”