COMMUNITY concerns about water, noise, wildlife and electricity use have been addressed by the proponent of a new Hazelmere data centre as the development enters public consultation.

The City of Swan is advertising CDC’s development application for a data centre at 178-196 Bushmead Road, with submissions open until 5pm on November 5.

The application proposes a four-storey facility reaching 36.5m, with 85,945sqm of floor space, 87 parking bays and a maximum occupancy of 75 people at any one time.

The facility would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and include generators, chiller plants and associated infrastructure, while a future electrical substation is identified but does not form part of the current application.

Echo News spoke with CDC chief operations officer Glenn Uidam who said community engagement had been a priority before and during the application process.

“The first and foremost priority is to ensure that we have good community engagement during the pre-application process and, of course, during the application process as well,” he said.

Mr Uidam said concerns raised included noise, environmental impacts, water use and electricity supply.

As reported in New Hazelmere data centre proposal, Trillion Trees chief executive officer Mark Hullet said the Bushmead Road site was one of Hazelmere’s remaining pockets of established native vegetation on private land.

Mr Hullet said the area provided habitat for threatened wildlife including black cockatoos and snake-necked turtles.

Mr Uidam said CDC was aware of concerns about wildlife and would continue investigating potential impacts.

“Any sort of environmental considerations are very important to us and we’ll make sure that we’re actively working with the appropriate stakeholders and parties to ensure that that’s well managed and appropriately looked after,” he said.

Water consumption has also emerged as an issue amid wider scrutiny of the resources required by data centres.

Mr Uidam said CDC used a closed-loop cooling system where water was placed into pipework and continuously recirculated rather than relying on ongoing water consumption for cooling.

“That means that once the water is essentially filled into the pipe work, it recirculates for the life of the facility,” he said.

“That means that we are not using ongoing water for that cooling system and evaporating it into the air.

“We don’t consume clean drinking water for the purpose of that cooling system.”

Echo News asked Mr Uidam whether heat expulsion was a factor to consider when assessing the CDC data centre.

“So first, I think that a fair amount of that is a bit of a misnomer, a bit of a misunderstanding that they cause an enormous amount of impact that we have done comprehensive studies on,” Mr Uidam said.

“We’re continuing to do that and learn more around the opportunities to improve how heat may be dispersed in the area and one of the things that we have done in our designs is we’ve very intentionally lifted the cooling systems slightly off the roof so that they’re not sitting directly on a location which can exacerbate any sort of heat source.

“As a result of that, it gets just the normal ambient air flowing over those cooling systems and doesn’t create any form of heat island effect in the local area.

“Given the critical nature of our data center offering, we also add additional levels of resiliency into the cooling plant to ensure that if there was any sort of impact to some of that cooling plant, we could continue to operate because there’s extra spare cooling units that are sitting there ready.

“That also has another effect directly related to the heat in the local area because it essentially spreads that across more units.

“It reduces the load of each of those cooling units and creates more surface area for that heat dispersion to be managed very effectively (and) that brings down the heat in the ambient area.”

CDC’s published project information says additional water would be used for amenities, landscaping and building management, with some demand intended to be supplied by rainwater collected onsite.

Mr Uidam said acoustic impacts had also been a major consideration in the design, with CDC proposing two layers of acoustic protection.

CDC says operational noise at the closest Mary Street residences is expected to be comparable with typical suburban background noise.

Electricity demand was another concern raised during CDC’s engagement with community groups including Trillion Trees, Woodbridge Ratepayers Association and Lower Helena Association.

Mr Uidam said CDC would pay for electrical infrastructure required to service the development, including network augmentation where necessary.

“We want to ensure that there is no impact to the electricity supply and to do so, we connect at a much higher level to the electricity supply that the community and the households connect to,” he said.

CDC says it matches its electricity consumption with renewable electricity and is targeting net zero emissions by 2030.

The new proposal follows GreenSquareDC’s withdrawal of a separate $1.1 billion Hazelmere data centre application in May following significant community opposition.

That proposal, at Stirling Crescent beside the Helena River, attracted almost 1900 submissions, with concerns including noise, traffic, proximity to the river, environmental impacts and its location near Helena River Steiner School.

Midland resident Melita McDonald started a petition in opposition of approving the proposed CDC data centre, calling for the application to go through comprehensive, independent assessment and meaningful community consultation by the City of Swan before any approval is granted

CDC’s Bushmead Road proposal will be determined by the Metro Outer Development Assessment Panel due to the value of the development.

The City of Swan is not the decision maker but will prepare a responsible authority report containing its recommendation and community submissions for the panel’s consideration.