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Down Under
Australia outback gas players eye Northern Territory to skip data centre power queue
2026-09-04
[Reuters] Gas producers and advisers promoting Australia's Northern Territory as a home for AI data centres say developers there can bypass ​grid-connection queues stalling projects in the populous southeast by building ‌their own power generating units.

The pitch from companies positioned to benefit from a data centre build-out comes as Canberra plans to require new data centres from next year to ​be matched by renewable generation, with natural gas allowed only as ​a backup.

The Territory's proposed data centre developments are anchored by ⁠shale gas from the Beetaloo sub-basin, Australia's only shale gas province, ​which lies 500 km (310 miles) south of Darwin and sent its first commercial volumes ​this week.

"A developer with land and an energy source can begin generation behind the meter, right next to the facility," said Jason Finlay, a partner at Vantage North Group, ​a consultancy formed this year by former Territory bureaucrats.

"No connection application, ​no augmentation works, no four-to-eight years' wait on someone else's transmission line," Finlay said, speaking ‌at ⁠the South East Asia Australia Offshore & Onshore Conference in Darwin.
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