At a glance
Tasmania published a draft Statement of Expectations for data centres and AI infrastructure on 7 September, with feedback closing 11.59pm on 12 October.
Developers are told to bring new renewable generation into the state, pay their fair share of network costs and cover all connection costs.
The document has no force in law, creates no new approval step, and leaves every project with the planning system Tasmania already uses.
Latrobe Council voted the same day to hand a 52MW Firmus project to a state assessment panel instead of deciding it itself.
Six companies have approached the state wanting as much as 705MW, and the government has withheld every name.
The Tasmanian Government published a draft Statement of Expectations for data centre and AI infrastructure developers on 7 September 2026, and opened it for comment until 11.59pm on Monday 12 October. Business, Industry and Resources Minister Felix Ellis said the government welcomes investment that creates jobs and builds new industries, but that no project receives automatic approval or special treatment.
It arrived on a state carrying more proposed AI load than its grid has ever served. Australian AI infrastructure company Firmus has three northern projects at 288MW, 90MW and 52MW, and two days after the Expectations were published, parliament was told another six companies want as much as 705MW between them. TasNetworks recorded maximum transmission demand from Tasmanian customers during 2024 at 1,812MW.
The document tells developers they are "required" to build new generation and pay full network costs, and that they "must" forecast their water use. It also calls itself a "non-statutory statement of government policy", which is to say it has no force in law, and it sends every project back through the planning system Tasmania already has.
The section on approvals says these developments "should continue to be assessed through Tasmania's existing Resource Management and Planning System". On 7 September, the day it was published, Latrobe Council voted unanimously to ask the planning minister to declare Firmus's 52MW Wesley Vale project a major project, which would take the decision off the council and give it to a state panel. New South Wales asks for a comparable set of commitments and pays for them by promising an answer in 75 days. Tasmania offers nothing of that kind, and one of its own councils spent the same day asking to be relieved of the job the document assumes it will do.
New generation, network costs and a water forecast
Seven expectations sit under three principles: economic development, energy, and environment and planning. Energy is the longest, running to six sub-sections.
The document states that "proponents are required to bring on additional renewable energy generation in Tasmania", and that they "are required to pay their fair share of network costs and pay for all connection costs, so that there be no net cost on existing Tasmanian customers". The generation line is Tasmania's answer to additionality, the question of whether a data centre has to add new supply to the system or may simply buy the output of a generator that already exists. Energy ministers have been working through the same question since July, and neither they nor Tasmania has said what makes a generation project new.
The document sets separate conditions for Hydro Tasmania. Firmus has asked the state-owned generator for a 450MW supply deal over ten years, and any firming it sells, the back-up power a grid leans on when supply dips, "should occur on commercial terms that provide an appropriate return and protect the interests of Tasmanians", keep the system reliable, and not reduce its ability to pursue broader market opportunities.
Water gets the same hard verb. Developers "must provide project-specific forecasts of maximum and average annual water demand" and are expected to operate so that "water security for other water users is not impacted". On cutting power use the document softens to "should", covering the ability to turn load down when the grid is tight and to look at hydrogen, biomethane and forestry waste for back-up supply.
No megawatt figure appears anywhere. The document covers "new and expanded data centre and AI infrastructure developments, including hyperscale, co-location, large-scale AI compute facilities and multisite developments", and the consultation page says the expectations reach "large data centre developments". How large an AI data centre has to be is left open.
Councils and the state regulators keep the decision
Assessment "will continue under the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 and the Tasmanian Planning Scheme", and will involve "a local planning authority and/or the Tasmanian Planning Commission and/or the Environment Protection Authority" depending on where a project sits and how big it is. The document also tells readers the buildings themselves "are not unprecedented or out of scale with structures that Tasmanians encounter in their day to day lives".
George Town Council used those rules on 25 August, approving Firmus's 288MW Bell Bay project six votes to one. Latrobe Council took a different course on Wesley Vale on 7 September, voting to ask the planning minister to declare it a major project and to have the EPA assess it. That route sits inside the same 1993 Act, but it moves the decision to a panel drawn from the independent Tasmanian Planning Commission. Councillor Gerrad Wicks said the Tasmanian planning scheme was "too outdated to adequately assess AI data centre developments", which is the question the parliamentary committee was asked in August to examine.
Six unnamed companies have approached the state
Six companies have been in contact with the Office of the Coordinator-General, the agency Tasmania uses to court investment, and the government has withheld their identities. A document tabled in parliament describes one in the north-west at 200MW to 300MW that has picked a site, a second at the same size still at the idea stage, a 50MW proposal at the closed Liberty Bell Bay manganese smelter, and three more at undefined sites, each up to 50MW.
The Examiner puts the six at up to 705MW; the ABC reports they would draw at least 500MW if all go ahead. None of Firmus's Tasmanian capacity is running either, and Launceston opens in 2027, so the state's whole pipeline is still on paper.
The tabled document records that "many of these proponents have not had any engagement with energy generators or TasNetworks to understand what is possible from an energy supply perspective". Where it leaves out a project's location, power demand, water use or scope, it says the information is unsettled, cannot be reliably estimated, or was given to the Coordinator-General in confidence. Speaking after the six were revealed, Premier Jeremy Rockliff said Tasmanians want to know more about these projects and that this is entirely reasonable, while calling data centres "exactly the kind of investment that Tasmania should be attracting".
The Expectations ask for disclosure without compelling it. Developers "are expected to comply with all current statutory reporting and information sharing obligations", and are encouraged to go further and publish energy and water use, employment, local procurement and community commitments. The parliamentary committee had been asked to look at making public reporting of power and water use compulsory.
New South Wales answers in 75 days
The document | What it asks for | What a developer gets |
|---|---|---|
Tasmania, draft Statement of Expectations, 7 Sep 2026 | New generation in the state, network and connection costs, water forecasts, voluntary reporting | No force in law; the same planning rules as before |
NSW, data centre guidelines, 17 Aug 2026 | Energy efficiency targets, recycled water, a 25% cut in grid power for up to two hours, ten-year contracts with projects yet to commit to build, and a match between power bought and power used from the fourth year | An answer in 75 days, for the part the state controls |
Commonwealth, national expectations, 23 Mar 2026 | New energy to cover demand, network costs, power use it can turn down, water, skills, compute access | Priority in Commonwealth assessments; expressly non-binding |
Compiled from the Tasmanian Government's draft Statement of Expectations, the NSW data centre guidelines and the Commonwealth national expectations, September 2026.
New South Wales asks for more than Tasmania does, and it pays for it with the one thing a developer cannot buy anywhere else: certainty about when it will get an answer.
TasICT, the state's technology industry body, welcomed the draft and has argued Tasmania needs agreed expectations on energy, water, planning transparency and community benefit, and that these projects must deliver tangible local value. Deputy Labor Leader Janie Finlay called the draft light on detail and filled with motherhood statements.
What to watch
Submissions to the parliamentary inquiry into AI data centres close on 21 September 2026, three weeks before the consultation closes on 12 October. The committee has published no submissions yet, and what Hydro Tasmania, TasNetworks, Aurora Energy and the Tasmanian Economic Regulator say about who gets the power is the thing to watch. Hydro Tasmania decides on Firmus's 450MW request by the end of 2026, and the planning minister now has Wesley Vale in front of him.
The Expectations name their own likely successor, recording that the Australian Government's proposed national framework is expected to cover power, grid connection, energy efficiency and water use, and that Tasmania "may update this document if a nationally agreed approach is settled". First ministers agreed on 26 August 2026 that the Commonwealth will write mandatory national standards for legislation in early 2027, and the longer passage published from that meeting would let a jurisdiction use state-owned generation, transmission and distribution where it keeps the grid steady and customer prices lower. Tasmania owns Hydro Tasmania and TasNetworks, so that clause reaches it, and the other state and territory documents written this year run against the same clock.