Australia’s peak renewable energy body, the Smart Energy Council, today expressed its alarm about the lack of certainty following the puzzling announcement out of National Cabinet on standards for data centres. 

Chief Executive David McElrea said there is confusion as to whether the Prime Minister has decided to allow carve outs for coal and gas to power data centres in Australia.

“If so, the decision contradicts the Albanese’s Government’s own renewable energy and climate policies and its previous announcements on AI standards,” Mr McElrea said.

“Just six weeks ago, Prime Minister Albanese stood up and promised Australians that AI data centres would be powered by new renewables. Yesterday, that promise became much less clear,” Mr McElrea said.

“If they have changed their policy then this would be a shortsighted backdown.”

“A national standard where Prime Minister Albanese allows two jurisdictions to opt out of isn’t a standard – it’s a coal and gas carve out.”

”The Australian public were promised data centres would be funded by additional renewable energy. Today we are unclear if either of these things are true.”

”If the Government has broken this promise it’s a recipe for higher bills, as data centres compete with households and other businesses for access to power. It means less reliability for our grid and runs the increased risk of blackouts and price surges at times of high demand.” 

“The ramifications will be locking in more emissions and higher power bills, while forcing households and local communities to compete for a dwindling supply of fossil fuel powered energy.”

The Smart Energy Council classifies this as a missed opportunity to guarantee Australians will not suffer the same negative outcomes that overseas nations are currently experiencing because of data centers.

“It’s a missed opportunity that threatens to commit Australia to the same mistakes we should have learnt from other countries that are up in arms about the impact of data centres,” Mr McElrea said.

The Smart Energy Council calls on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to urgently clarify that he has not changed his policy and that Australian energy consumers will not be forced to pay higher power prices, and endure greater pollution, by ensuring nationally consistent mandates that ensure data centres provide enough new renewable generation and firmed storage to offset any of their demand.

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Email: media@smartenergy.org.au
Phone: +61 448 972 192
Website: www.smartenergy.org.au

About the Smart Energy Council

The Smart Energy Council is the peak independent membership body representing Australia’s renewable energy industry. We are a not-for-profit organisation and registered charity, advocating on behalf of our members and the wider industry for strong energy policy, increased investment, energy security and sustainable industry growth. Our work spans residential, commercial and industrial distributed energy resources (DER), including solar PV and battery storage, rooftop solar, electrification, electric vehicles and smart transport, renewable manufacturing, large-scale renewable energy, electricity grid development and emerging energy technologies. We represent our members’ interests nationally and internationally, including across the Asia-Pacific region.

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