At a glance
Australia intends to legislate its data centre standards in early 2027. Three capacity figures are in circulation: 1.5GW, 2.9GW and 9GW.
The pipeline totals 21.6GW on one consistent measure: 4.8GW operating, being built or committed, and 16.8GW at early stage.
The ABC counted 25 approved but unbuilt data centres at "at least 2.9 gigawatts" on 11 September and reported that the standards would not reach them.
CDC's 150MW campus near Perth was consented as warehouses and ancillary structures, because Western Australian planning schemes do not define a data centre use.
New South Wales approved Project Apollo under guidelines published seventeen months after Goodman lodged it. Approval under the old rules exempted nothing.
On 11 September the ABC's Cam Wilson and Cath McAloon counted 25 approved but unbuilt data centres at "at least 2.9 gigawatts". They reported that Australia's coming data centre standards would not apply to them. Anthony Albanese had told ABC Radio Sydney on 16 July 2026 that the rules "will be for new proposals. You can't retrofit." The ABC names developments from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, AirTrunk, CDC and NEXTDC, and from the property groups Goodman and Stockland.
Australia intends to legislate those standards, covering data centre energy, water and land use, in early 2027. New South Wales already imposes an energy condition. Goodman's 135MW Project Apollo must contract new renewable supply in the state before it can operate. Projects inside the ABC's 25 build under the rules as they stand. Everything else builds under the 2027 standards, which the government says will require projects to underwrite their own new power supply.
Three figures are in circulation. A planning approval counts all the electricity a site may draw, an industry count measures only the power reaching the servers, and a grid queue counts the connection a network would have to build.
On Data Centres Australia's single measure of server load, Australia's pipeline is 21.6GW: 4.8GW operating, being built or committed, and 16.8GW still at early stage. The standards would govern the 16.8GW yet to be permitted and exempt the 4.8GW. The 2.9GW adds planning-approved energy capacity to company statements of computing power, so it cannot measure this build against the last one. Approval does not settle a project's obligations. New South Wales applied guidelines published on 17 August 2026 to an application it had received in March 2025.
The same project gets three different capacity numbers
The 2.9GW combines two quantities. The ABC gives its basis as "each company's statements of computing power and the state planning-approved energy capacity". A planning-approved energy capacity covers servers, cooling and electrical losses together. A statement of computing power counts the servers alone.
Cooling and losses separate the two figures, and they vary from building to building. The ABC does not say how it converted one to the other.
The 1.5GW the ABC cites alongside it is a server-load figure. Data Centres Australia published its Australian Data Centre Forecast Report in April 2026 with the market researcher DC Byte. The report counts 162 operating data centres in Australia at 31 March 2026 and defines operational capacity as "the IT load of fitted out data halls that are operational and available for use", which is the power reaching servers in halls already finished and running.
Figure | What it counts | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
1.5GW operating, 162 sites | Server load in data halls fitted out and available | Data Centres Australia and DC Byte, 31 March 2026 |
2.9GW approved and unbuilt, 25 projects | Company statements of computing power added to state planning-approved energy capacity | ABC News, 11 September 2026 |
9GW, 17 projects | Grid connection capacity sought from the high-voltage network | AEMO, the market operator, 30 June 2026 |
Source: Certified Strategic Editorial, from the Australian Data Centre Forecast Report Issue 1, ABC News and AEMO's June quarter report, September 2026.
The ABC says its list "has been verified by analysts from commercial renewable energy project mapper RenewMap and real estate construction analytics firm CBRE". The ABC does not publish the 25 projects and names two of them: Goodman's Project Apollo and NEXTDC's S4 campus at Horsley Park, both on the Sydney data centre map.
AEMO counts connection applications and had 9GW across 17 projects in the queue at the end of June. AEMO's queue covers the National Electricity Market, which excludes Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Western Australian planning schemes do not define a data centre use, so CDC's 150MW Maddington campus near Perth was assessed as warehouses and ancillary structures. A standard written for approved data centres would miss it. Jacqueline Boaks, a philosopher at Curtin University's Centre for Applied Ethics, writes that in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory applications "can only be assessed as warehouses or general industrial uses".
Data Centres Australia publishes all four stages on one measure
The April report counts server load at every stage, so the four can be added. Operational is 1.5GW. Under construction, meaning data halls being fitted out with their equipment, is 0.2GW. Committed, meaning projects that DC Byte holds "high confidence" will eventually operate, is 3.1GW. Early stage, meaning projects that "have not secured all elements required for development (land, power, permits etc) and may or may not eventuate", is 16.8GW. The four sum to the report's own pipeline total of 21.6GW.
Everything operating, being built or committed comes to 4.8GW, against 16.8GW still assembling land, power and permits. DC Byte assigns committed status on its own confidence that a project will run. The 3.1GW and the ABC's 2.9GW count different projects.
More than 40 per cent of data centre projects drop out or slip back
DC Byte's early-stage definition bundles land, power and permits, and the report does not break out permits. It calls them projects that "may or may not eventuate".
AEMO's 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities records more than 40 per cent of data centre projects since 2025 dropping out or regressing in connection status. RenewMap co-founder and director Alex Thompson told the ABC that "not all of these data centres will get built". AEMO gives that rate for connection applicants as a whole. It does not split it between DC Byte's committed and early-stage groups.
Industry and critics argue over rules that have not been drafted
The National Cabinet statement of 26 August 2026 records that the Commonwealth "will work with state and territory governments to develop consistent mandatory standards for data centre energy, water and land-use" and "intends to legislate the AI standards in early 2027". The statement does not say whether the standards attach at approval, at the point an application is lodged, or at grid connection.
Data Centres Australia chief executive Belinda Dennett told the ABC that members "will continue to meet those requirements until the new rules are in force" but "cannot comply with something that isn't yet established or even articulated". Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said that "in the absence of a moratorium on building and approving new data centres, then these rules must be retrospective because otherwise they're worthless".
Boaks wrote in The Conversation on 14 September that "existing data centres and the more than 200 centres currently going through the planning process will not be subject to these requirements". She called state and territory requirements to date "varying and largely unenforceable" and wrote that "None is legally binding."
Project Apollo was one of those applications in the planning process. New South Wales applied its guidelines to it anyway.
New South Wales applied its new rules to an application from 2025
The NSW data centre guidelines were published on 17 August 2026. Sixteen days later the state approved Goodman's A$1.365 billion Project Apollo at Macquarie Park, capped at 135MW of total power. Goodman had lodged that application in March 2025, seventeen months before the guidelines existed. The department applied the guidelines anyway. The planning act requires it to apply the rules current at the date of decision.
Apollo cannot run until Goodman shows the Planning Secretary that new renewable supply, contracted in New South Wales, covers every megawatt it draws at all times. That counts cooling as well as computing, and storage or gas has to firm the supply for the hours wind and solar fall short. Goodman must also produce written evidence within six months of construction starting that the contracting has begun. It must measure and publish its efficiency and water use every year.
Albanese announced the federal obligations on 15 July 2026. He said they would include "a legal obligation to underwrite their own new power supply, pay their full share of connection costs so energy bills are not impacted, reduce power when needed to strengthen the grid, and be as water efficient as possible". Apollo's consent requires the first of those. Goodman lodged the application in March 2025, sixteen months before Albanese spoke.
Transgrid, the New South Wales transmission business, brought its data centre connection rules into effect on 14 August 2026. They allocate capacity only to projects that can show an approval on the planning portal, and they set no condition on the date of that approval. They apply to projects seeking a new connection. NEXTDC said at its NEXTDC FY26 results that it had "received written confirmation from Transgrid that its new capacity allocation policy does not apply to S4 Sydney".
What to watch
The New South Wales connection reforms. Submissions on the Energy NSW consultation paper close at 5pm on 14 September 2026. The paper proposes a deposit of A$30,000 for every megawatt an applicant asks for, forfeited if the applicant does not follow through. It also proposes ranking large users for grid access on energy and water efficiency, on their ability to cut load at peak demand, and on willingness to pay higher connection fees. Energy NSW has put ten proposals out for comment and none is policy yet.
The rule change requests before energy ministers. Ministers agreed in July to progress arrangements requiring data centres to offset demand with additional renewable generation in their own jurisdiction. National Electricity Rule change requests were to be developed for September. A network rule applies at the point a project connects, which every approved but unbuilt project has still to do.
Issue 2 of the forecast report. Issue 1 dates to 31 March 2026. It excludes Project Apollo and every other AI data centre decision since. The sites behind its figures are in the Australian data centre directory.
Which measure the Commonwealth drafting adopts. Any size threshold in the standards has to say whether capacity means server load or the connection a site draws on. A threshold written in server load and one written in connection capacity catch different projects.