Gingerah refers 1GW Kimberley data centre for federal review
Gingerah Energy has referred its 1,000-megawatt Project Meridien data centre and renewables hub near Broome for federal environmental assessment, and says gas will be a minor part of the energy mix. Environmental groups want to know where that gas will come from.
Gingerah Energy has put Project Meridien, a proposed 1,000-megawatt data centre and renewable energy hub in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, before the Commonwealth's environmental agency. Enerdata reported on 27 October that a government release dated 21 October lists the referral under the federal EPBC Act. A referral opens the federal environmental process but does not amount to an approval.
The project would sit on Karajarri country, on the Frazier Downs pastoral lease held by the Karajarri Traditional Lands Association (KTLA), roughly 100 kilometres south of Broome. Gingerah is owned jointly by KTLA, the Dutch company Fugro and Longreach Capital Investment, an Australian firm. Longreach also owns Theia Energy, which has previously applied to drill and fracture exploration wells in the Kimberley.
Enerdata reports the plan as five stages of 48MW, 120MW, 240MW, 620MW and 1,000MW, operating off-grid through an internal microgrid. Generation would come from about 5.2GW of solar and 1.5GW of wind, a combined 6.7GW, with 5GWh of battery storage. The reported targets are a final investment decision on the first phase in 2029, progressive commissioning over 2030 to 2032 and full build-out by 2038.
Chief executive Jop van Hattum said the project would start on solar, batteries and gas, with wind added later. He said renewables would initially meet more than 85 per cent of demand, and Gingerah is aiming for that share to reach 94 per cent. He said the gas would most likely come from Karratha and be bought from "the domestic gas market".
Environmentalists have suggested the supply could be fracked gas from the Kimberley. Fracking is not banned in the Canning basin, but no project there has the approvals needed to go ahead. Environs Kimberley director Martin Pritchard said the domestic market answer "leads to questions", and asked whether the gas might come from Buru Energy or Theia Energy. KTLA director Justin King Senior said the gas would "absolutely not" come from fracking.
Grattan Institute energy expert Alison Reeve estimated the first 240-megawatt phase would need about eight terajoules of gas a day, and about 32 terajoules at full capacity. She said that was perhaps 1 per cent of WA's total gas demand, but that the project was too small to prompt new exploration or fracking in the Kimberley because the state already has enough gas.