Houston-based Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners (Quinbrook) announced that it has secured approval for a data centre project worth A$2.5 billion (1.7 billion USD) in Australia, and plans to build a data center campus in Queensland which would house four hyperscale data centres.
Quinbrook, an investment manager which specialises in renewable energy transition and sustainability efforts, is also set to incorporate renewable energy capacity and a 2000-MW-hour battery energy storage system, known as Supernode, within the data center campus.
Data Center Australia, when completed, Supernode will be one of the largest utility-scale batteries in Australia, and will support the massive hyperscale data centres close to Brisbane in southeast Queensland.
Key Source of Support for Sustainable, Hyperscale Data Centres
The firm will develop the Supernode project in four stages, and situate the Supernode project on a 30-hectare site in northern Brisbane. The Supernode battery project is located close to the South Pine substation, the central node of Queensland’s electricity grid, and will also be directly connected to an international subsea data communications network.
Quinbrook added that the Supernode battery energy storage system would also offer critical back-up to Queensland’s power system and electricity grid. By providing a stable source of renewable energy, Supernode will not only lower the risk of power disruptions in Queensland, but may also reduce power prices in the region.
Quinbrook Senior Director Brian Restall affirmed that “adding large-scale battery storage and renewables to address high power prices, grid stress and the decarbonisation of our power supply at the same time is a remarkable investment opportunity by any measure.”
David Scaysbrook, Co-founder of Quinbrook, noted that the prime, well-connected location of the data centre site “offers ample scope for powering our large-scale batteries with locally produced solar, wind and hydro sourced renewables which will also power the data centre campus as it grows.”
While Quinbrook has mostly focused on projects in the United States and Britain, Scaysbrook observed that recent elections, which propelled a new Labor government committed to renewable energy transformation into power, paved the way for Quinbrook to have greater investment opportunities in Australia.
Quinbrook has set a target to close on the first phase of the project by the end of June 2023, and has also lodged applications for construction to begin in mid-2023. The Foreign Investment Review Board and Moreton Bay Regional Council have already given Quinbrook the greenlight for their data centre campus to host third-party data centre operations.
“Sustainable Transformation” is a sub-category under the awards category “Outstanding Data Center Projects” for this year’s W.Media Asia Pacific Cloud & Datacenter Awards programme, where enterprise users and industry experts will come together to share their insights and opinions on data centre innovations. If you are interested in nominating or sponsoring, visit our Awards Page for more information. Nominations are open until 31st July.
