Wagga residents balk as IREN plans 900 MW data centre alongside CDC proposal

IREN has proposed a 900 megawatt data centre worth more than $10 billion on Redbank Road in Gregadoo, a suburb of Wagga Wagga, making it the second large facility planned there. The other is a $15 billion campus from Canberra Data Centres (CDC), which could require up to 1.4 gigawatts of electricity. Around 120 people turned up to a community meeting at the Boat Club to discuss the projects.

The CDC plan has four buildings on a 104-hectare site near the Gregadoo Waste Management Centre, with 189,000 square metres of floor space. IREN says it is founded in Australia and listed on the Nasdaq, and describes its project as in early planning, west of the same waste centre. Blockspace Media reported that the investment could be spread over six to eight years and that the site is not part of IREN's existing 5 GW secured-power portfolio. The outlet listed grid access, environmental permitting, financing and finding customers as obstacles, and pointed to competition for electricity with CDC.

Resident Rachael Cornius-Randall said the suburb was being turned from a rural and residential area into an industrial energy and data precinct. "We feel we’re being sacrificed for development, while outsiders make all the decisions," she said. She also said the data centres would sit too close to homes and Lake Albert Public School. The CDC proposal has already led to petitions and worries about noise, fire risk, water use and strain on the grid.

Former Museum of the Riverina manager Luke Grealy said residents were struggling to take in the scale and pace of the proposals. "Those amounts are chicken feed compared to the scale of what’s planned," Grealy said of CDC's community benefits offer. He described the meeting as calm, with residents looking for answers rather than simply opposing development.

CDC chief executive Greg Boorer has called the project a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" for Wagga and the Riverina. CDC says it would generate about 1500 construction jobs and at least 200 permanent roles, and that its closed-loop cooling would need only an initial fill of up to 250,000 litres of rainwater. It has put forward a community benefits package worth up to $225 million and promised to fund required grid connection changes. IREN says its project would create more than 500 construction jobs and more than 200 ongoing jobs, and that it expects to pay Wagga Wagga City Council more than $200 million over 30 years. IREN also said it would use closed-loop cooling and plans to contract new generation and storage to cover its power use.

Wagga Council voted at its most recent meeting to let its general manager negotiate the sale of council land at 232 Ashfords Road to CDC, subject to agreement on community benefits. Councillors Mike Henderson and Jenny McKinnon voted against and Amelia Parkins abstained, and all three said they wanted more information and consultation. The CDC project still needs NSW Government assessment and approval, with the environmental impact statement and public exhibition yet to come. IREN will hold community drop-in sessions at Romano's Hotel in Wagga Wagga on Wednesday 4 November and Thursday 5 November.