{"id":19177,"date":"2025-09-15T06:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T06:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=19177"},"modified":"2025-09-15T06:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T06:04:07","slug":"tech-giants-data-centres-could-consume-2-of-sydneys-water-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=19177","title":{"rendered":"Tech giants\u2019 data centres could consume 2% of Sydney\u2019s water supply"},"content":{"rendered":"
Authorities in Sydney approved construction of\u00a0data\u00a0centres without requiring measurable\u00a0plans\u00a0to cut\u00a0water\u00a0use, raising concerns the sector’s rapid growth will leave residents competing for the resource.<\/p>\n

The New South Wales state government, which presides over\u00a0Australia’s biggest city, green-lit all 10\u00a0data\u00a0centre\u00a0applications it has ruled on since expanding its planning powers in 2021, from owners like Microsoft, Amazon and Blackstone’s\u00a0AirTrunk, documents reviewed by Reuters show.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0centres would bring in a total A$6.6 billion ($4.35 billion) of construction spending, but would ultimately use up to 9.6 gigalitres a year of clean\u00a0water, or nearly 2% of Sydney’s maximum supply, the documents show.<\/p>\n

Fewer than half the approved applications gave projections of how much\u00a0water\u00a0they would save using alternative sources. State planning law says\u00a0data\u00a0centre\u00a0developers must “demonstrate how the development minimises … consumption of energy,\u00a0water\u00a0… and material resources” but does not require projections on\u00a0water\u00a0usage or savings. Developers need to disclose what alternative\u00a0water\u00a0supplies they will use but not how much.<\/p>\n

The findings show authorities are approving projects with major expected impact on public\u00a0water\u00a0demand based on developers’ general and non-measurable assurances as they seek a slice of the $200 billion global\u00a0data\u00a0centre\u00a0boom.<\/p>\n

The state planning department confirmed the 10 approved\u00a0data\u00a0centres collectively projected annual\u00a0water\u00a0consumption of 9.6 gigalitres but noted five of those outlined how they expect to cut demand over time. The department did not identify the projects or comment on whether their\u00a0water\u00a0reduction\u00a0plans\u00a0were measurable.<\/p>\n

“In all cases, Sydney\u00a0Water\u00a0provided advice to the Department that it was capable of supplying the\u00a0data\u00a0centre\u00a0with the required\u00a0water,” a department spokesperson told Reuters in an email.<\/p>\n

Data\u00a0centres could account for up to a quarter of Sydney’s available\u00a0water\u00a0by 2035, or 135 gigalitres, according to Sydney\u00a0Water\u00a0projections shared with Reuters. Those projections assume\u00a0centres achieve goals of using less\u00a0water\u00a0to cool the servers, but did not specify what those targets were.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s drinking\u00a0water\u00a0is limited to one dam and a desalination plant, making supply increasingly tight as the population and temperatures rise. In 2019, its 5.3 million residents were banned from\u00a0watering gardens or washing cars with a hose as drought and bushfires ravaged the country.<\/p>\n

“There is already a shortfall between supply and demand,” said Ian Wright, a former scientist for Sydney\u00a0Water\u00a0who is now an associate professor of environmental science at Western Sydney University.<\/p>\n

As more\u00a0data\u00a0centres are\u00a0built, “their growing thirst in drought times will be very problematic,” he added.<\/p>\n

The number of\u00a0data\u00a0centres, which store computing infrastructure, is growing exponentially as the world increasingly uses AI and cloud computing. But their cast water needs for cooling have prompted the U.S., Europe and others to introduce new rules on\u00a0water\u00a0usage.<\/p>\n

New South Wales enforces no\u00a0water\u00a0usage rules for\u00a0data\u00a0centres other than the government being “satisfied that the development contains measures designed to minimise the consumption of potable\u00a0water,” according to the documents.<\/p>\n

Data Boom<\/p>\n

Just three of the 10 approved\u00a0data\u00a0centre\u00a0applications gave a projection of how much the developer hoped to cut reliance on public\u00a0water\u00a0using alternative sources like rainwater. The biggest\u00a0centre\u00a0cleared for construction, a 320-megawatt AirTrunk facility, was approved after saying it would harvest enough rainwater\u00a0to cut its potable\u00a0water\u00a0consumption by 0.4%, the documents show.<\/p>\n

An AirTrunk spokesperson said early planning documents referred to peak demand but “subsequent modelling recently tabled to Sydney\u00a0Water\u00a0has determined actual usage will be significantly lower”.<\/p>\n

The company was “working with Sydney\u00a0Water\u00a0to transition the site to be nearly entirely serviced by recycled\u00a0water”, the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

The most ambitious commitment to cut reliance on town\u00a0water\u00a0was 15%, for one of two\u00a0data\u00a0centres approved on land held by Amazon, planning documents show.<\/p>\n

The two\u00a0centres would collectively need 195.2 megawatts of electricity and take up to 92 megalitres a year of Sydney’s drinking\u00a0water\u00a0before rainwater\u00a0harvesting, say the documents, which give a projected reduction in\u00a0water\u00a0use for one project but not the other.<\/p>\n

Amazon declined to comment on individual properties but said its\u00a0Australian\u00a0data\u00a0centres avoid using\u00a0water\u00a0for cooling for 95.5% of the year because their temperature controls rely more on fans than evaporative cooling.<\/p>\n

Microsoft gave a 12% projected\u00a0water\u00a0use reduction for one of the two Sydney\u00a0data\u00a0centres it has had approved. Microsoft declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Hard Swallow<\/p>\n

Sydney’s suburban councils, meanwhile, want to slow what they see as competition for limited\u00a0water\u00a0supply, especially when the state wants 377,000 new homes by 2029 to ease a housing shortage.<\/p>\n

“A lot of them have been\u00a0built\u00a0without much discussion,” said Damien Atkins, a member of Blacktown council where state-approved\u00a0centres owned by AirTrunk, Amazon and Microsoft are being\u00a0built.<\/p>\n

“There should be more pushback and I’m just starting to ask those questions now.”<\/p>\n

In the city’s north, Lane Cove council asked the state to return approval powers to local government, citing\u00a0water\u00a0usage and other concerns.<\/p>\n

Neighbouring Ryde council has five\u00a0centres and another six in various stages of planning. It said those 11 would take nearly 3% of its\u00a0water\u00a0supply and has called for a moratorium on approvals.<\/p>\n

On a small vegetable farm near where Amazon, Microsoft, AirTrunk and others are building\u00a0centres, Meg Sun said her family’s business had to turn off the sprinklers in the 2019 drought but still bought enough\u00a0water\u00a0from Sydney\u00a0Water\u00a0to drip-feed the crops.<\/p>\n

She worries what might happen if\u00a0water\u00a0demand is worsened by\u00a0data\u00a0centres’ needs in the next drought.<\/p>\n

“We can’t even run the business then, because we do rely on\u00a0water,” she said.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities in Sydney approved construction of\u00a0data\u00a0centres without requiring measurable\u00a0plans\u00a0to cut\u00a0water\u00a0use, raising concerns the sector’s rapid growth will leave residents competing for the resource. The New South Wales state government, which presides over\u00a0Australia’s biggest city, green-lit all 10\u00a0data\u00a0centre\u00a0applications it has ruled on since expanding its planning powers in 2021, from owners like Microsoft, Amazon and Blackstone’s\u00a0AirTrunk, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}