00:02they seem about right given the the size of the the projects that are proposed so there's a there's
00:09a huge pipeline of projects that are proposed not all of them will go ahead so it's a bit of
00:13a
00:13challenge for aemo to try and work out how many of those are likely to actually happen because a lot
00:19won't um and there's a lot of uncertainty around these forecasts but nonetheless the the scale of
00:25of what's going in um is significant enough to really merit serious concern and we need to make
00:32sure that the additional electricity demand that these projects uh add is covered by additional
00:39new generation otherwise electricity prices will go up most likely yeah i'll get to electricity
00:44prices in just a moment what about the grid's reliability is it under threat from this
00:48increased demand from data centers well according to aemo's latest analysis that they released today
00:54along with the updated forecast they looked at the supply demand balance and they said look
00:58reliability shouldn't be at threat uh for the next few years so really over i think to out to 2030
01:05they
01:05sort of said things are looking reasonably good um but we really do urgently need to bring on new supply
01:12because it takes a long time to build new power stations and so we need to get cracking as soon
01:18as
01:18we can to make sure that um beyond that 2030 time frame everything will be fine well let's look at
01:24that new supply and what it might look like we know that the government is looking around the policy here
01:29and one is to require data centers to guarantee new renewable supply to cover their energy use um
01:35is that possible can renewables be built in time to cater for this demand absolutely um so just to give
01:45you one illustration uh rooftop solar being added mainly to households is adding about more more
01:52electricity generation than what the data centers will add in terms of their demand so that doesn't
01:58mean everything's all fine right so but that just illustrates that just rooftop solar from households
02:04is adding more electricity generation than what the data centers are expected to add but the problem is
02:11we've also got to juggle the fact that we're adding electric vehicles at the same time and we've also
02:16got to manage a phase down in retirement of very old coal-fired power stations that are getting old and
02:22increasingly unreliable so we have to manage a withdrawal of of that supply as well as adding
02:28additional sources of demand like electric vehicles so we we can certainly do this so as an example
02:34beyond rooftop solar another example is the the the large-scale wind and solar farms that have all their
02:41government approvals in place their environmental and planning approvals are capable of generating 86
02:46terawatt hours of electricity per annum by comparison in 2035 according to the aemo forecast
02:54data centers will add or will have 32 terawatt hours so just the projects that already have approvals in
03:00place 86 terawatt hours versus data centers 32 so if we muck this up if we don't
03:07able we're able to accommodate the extra data centers and more than cater for their extra electricity
03:14demand but it won't happen unless government is really requiring those data centers to pull their
03:21weight and we've seen what's happened in other countries in ireland in in certain states in the
03:25us where there's been a lot of data center development they have not added extra supply so we need to
03:31put an
03:31obligation on them otherwise other consumers are going to end up picking the picking up the bill
03:36what do you say tristan to the there's some opposition from some of the states with respect
03:40to where this generation comes from being renewables the argument there is that is it right to tie this
03:47economic opportunity to the renewable transition the concern there that it might weaken investment in the
03:54country yeah the issue is if it's not renewables that are going to add the extra supply where's it
04:01going to come from and the issue is we've already got a gas shortage right now we've got manufacturers
04:07pleading to get hold of gas supplies and um we're looking to have to reserve some gas supplies so that
04:14manufacturing have enough gas so if we put that into power stations to feed data centers that means less
04:20for everyone else and the other issue is that means higher power prices and the other issue is
04:25where we're going to get the gas turbines from so at the moment there is a global shortage of gas
04:30turbines there is a five-year wait time for gas turbines because a range of other data centers
04:34around the world particularly in the us have sucked up all of the gas turbines and really
04:39queensland government are pushing this idea that it'll all be fine you know what that's going to
04:44mean it's going to mean queensland electricity consumers are going to pay more for their electricity
04:48and you know what that'll be great for queensland treasury which owns the coal-fired generators
04:53that'll expand their output to meet this and raise their prices but it won't be good for queensland
04:59electricity consumers it'll be great maybe the data centers will do okay out of the whole thing maybe
05:04but other electricity consumers will have to pay more because where else is the new supply going to
05:09come from and in the end demand will go up there won't be any new supply from gas because we
05:15can't get
05:16gas turbines and power prices will go up which is great for queensland treasury but not for electricity
05:21electricity consumers
05:22you
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