I met Anthony and Samantha on Holden Road in Plumpton, 40 kilometres west of Melbourne’s CBD. We’ve parked our cars at the Melbourne Renewable Energy hub gate, behind which a huge expanse of land could become home to a hyperscale data centre owned and operated by Syncline Energy.
The surrounding area is a green wedge, meaning that it should be protected from industrial and urban sprawl. There’s a free-range egg farm, rolling fields, some houses and a few horses. Samantha, who is campaigning against the development, lives five minutes away in Diggers Rest and learned to ride a horse right here. In fact, one we are looking at is called Betsy and is the very same horse.
A petition against the AI hub raises concerns about environmental destruction, including “endangered ecological vegetation communities, biodiversity corridors, areas of Aboriginal cultural heritage sensitivity and conservation efforts”.
The Plumpton plan is still awaiting approval from the state government. If it gets it, the site will host a 350-hectare AI hub, which the Age reports is the size of 175 MCG playing fields. The facility will have a maximum power draw of 2.5 gigawatts, more than the entire output of the Loy Yang A coal power plant. Loy Yang A provides around 30 percent of Victoria’s power. It would use more power than every other data centre currently operating combined.
“It’s such a blatant display of profit over people”, says Anthony, who has also been campaigning against Syncline’s plans for months.
Their campaign group started after a community meeting of 150 people in Sydenham. “Anthony and Ella produced these awesome pamphlets, so we’ve been doing lots of letterboxing”, Samantha says. “We also hosted an information night [and] we’ve got a day of action coming up. We also attended the Senate inquiry as witnesses.”
The Senate inquiry held hearings in Yarraville last month. The inquiry has heard from residents, local politicians and data centre CEOs. Local testimonies include stories of monolithic structures bearing down on residents, diesel emissions and pollution, drone surveillance, and concerns about fire risk.
“The Plumpton site will have huge amounts of lithium-ion batteries, and we feel like this hasn’t been assessed or regulated enough”, Samantha says. Lithium-ion batteries can trigger thermal runaway, releasing toxic fumes and a self-sustaining fire. Because data centres need 24/7 power, they often rely on diesel or gas generators. This increases the risk of uncontrollable fires. “The combination of lithium batteries and diesel is a pretty nasty sort of fire”, a member of Fire Rescue Victoria told the ABC in June.
The Plumpton group is one of many across Melbourne, mostly in working-class areas. The wealthy areas of Melbourne are unlikely to be high on the list of potential sites for the centres. In fact, Belinda Dennett, CEO of the data centre lobby group, said she wouldn’t want to live near one. Samantha describes her as “AI in human form”. Anthony is frustrated that communities have no say in whether centres get built. “It’s so clear that the system is not set up for a democratic decision”, he says.
Samantha says those living near the site don’t have much idea what is coming to their doorstep:
“Last time I checked, there’s about 80 residents around here. And none of these guys knows about it. It will be in full view of their backyards, and they almost don’t want to believe me; they think I’m almost a conspiracy theorist. But it’s going to be built here, and they haven’t been notified”.
That’s why Samantha and her co-organisers have been hosting outreach meetings, and doing the letterboxing and door knocking. They want to inform their neighbours what is coming to their communities and fight it together.
According to Samantha and Anthony, Syncline’s CEO is a “schmoozer”. At the Senate hearings, he said his company has done a “bad job” at community outreach. He’s trying to turn that around and convince locals the AI hub will benefit them.
“He is very good at convincing people that this will benefit them, without explaining how”, Samantha says. Anthony and Samantha feel the campaign has put pressure on Syncline, which is now trying to win support for its plan by claiming it will create new jobs. But those in the campaign aren’t fooled.
They also aren’t fooled by the Labor government’s Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan. The government promises that data centres won’t be built near residential areas and requires them to bring their own energy and water. But on closer inspection, these requirements are easy to get around. If recycled water isn’t yet available, data centre companies can simply submit a “plan with the water corporation to offset interim drinking water use”. For electricity, they only have to invest in new renewable generation and storage. Samantha is furious:
“None of it’s due to come into effect or be legislated until early 2027. So even though we have been waiting almost twelve months for this plan, we still need to wait until early 2027 for legislation to catch up. And that’s just not good enough when we’ve got the department of planning process fast-tracking the data centre application in as little as 28 days.”
Locals living close to existing data centres are unhappy too. The plan doesn’t affect centres that have already been built or approved. Anthony sums up the mood: “The west is sick of it. The working class is sick of being taken for granted. But we are stubborn people, and we won’t go down without a fight”.
