RESIDENTS rallied against the new data centre proposal on Tuesday evening, gathering beside Hazelmere Hall where CDC staff were holding a community consultation event.

About 20 minutes into the gathering, rally organisers led a march around the pathway in Bruce Elliott Reserve to the sound of drums while chanting, “Hey, ho, no data centre”.

Trillion Trees communications coordinator Kate Herren said the opposition gave a voice to the wildlife and protected the natural environment that was under pressure.

“We’re disappointed to be here again, only a few months after we fought off GreenSquare DC in Stirling Crescent, but we will stand with the community when we need to and stand up for nature,” she said.

“We don’t think that this proposal in this location is appropriate for many, many reasons.

“Not least the loss of more than 400 native trees and concreting over of the wetland and landscape beneath those trees because of the insane scale of this building.

“It’s almost as big as Optus Stadium and it’s going to be a blot on this beautiful natural landscape, and that’s another really important reason why it’s not the right place for this proposal.”

City of Swan Midland/Guildford ward councillor Ian Johnson said the crowd should be mindful of how the process worked and to direct their input to the correct people if they needed to.

“This development application… decision will not be made by your local council but by a metro outer development application panel (MODAP),” he said.

“That consists of five people, who have been appointed by the state government.

“Three of them are planners, two of them are your local councillors… selected by the minister.

“Those are the people that you’ve got to give your input to.”

The Swan council representatives set to attend the upcoming data centre MODAP hearing are councillors Rod Henderson and Mel Congerton.

“You can make a submission (to them and) you can also attend your council meeting where you can make a public statement,” Cr Johnson said.

“That message will get across to the representatives on the MODAP and also the (City of Swan) planners who will be in there listening.

“And you can make a deputation, that is a speech, to the MODAP when (the proposal) eventually goes there.”

Rally-goers entered Hazelmere Hall to ask CDC staff questions about the proposal and challenge them to convince the community of the data centre’s necessity.

CDC chief operations officer Glenn Uidam fielded questions in the hall about energy and water usage, the utility of the centre’s proposed size, and heat dispersion.

Mr Uidam said the size of the facility synergised with the liquid cooling system, giving it the area to travel and cool with heat exchangers to be located on the centre’s roof to optimise cooling so water was recycled throughout the centre’s lifespan.

The newest proposal comes on the back of GreenSquareDC’s withdrawal of their 120-megawatt (MW) AI data centre proposal in May this year, as reported in Hazelmere data centre application withdrawn.

The newest application proposes the construction of a 192MW facility.

Mr Uidam said the capacity was not indicative of typical power usage by the proposed centre.

He said it would typically run at 50 to 70 per cent capacity instead and most facilities ran at about that range.

“No one likes running their car on their red line day in day out and it’s usually reserved for their peak period,” Mr Uidam said.

“Part of the reason why we built to the scale that we do is actually around optimising the efficiency to be the best it possibly can be, both for the environment as well as for the ongoing electricity use.

“It also depends on every single customer.”

Echo News asked if a client list had been defined yet and whether the data centre would oblige customers’ artificial intelligence (AI) needs.

“We don’t necessarily have a defined client list as yet and those discussions are ongoing,” Mr Uidam said.

He said AI needs would only be met if they related to critical infrastructure services or was directly adjacent to it.

When asked to define what critical infrastructure services meant, Mr Uidam said they were services that, “keep the country running”.

“Things like the electrical, water, and health services,” he said.

“Everything from transport to telecommunications, and the like as well, that’s our core business.

“We are looking forward to seeing what unfolds in this community engagement and determining what may be possible to locate in this facility.

“But we certainly won’t be putting low cost, low value type non-critical customers in a facility like this.

“Most of the concerning, call it Bitcoin mining type facilities don’t require that level of resiliency and likely can’t afford the premium product offering that we bring.

“I think the best way to put it is that not all data centres are the same.

“We provide a very high quality, reliability, efficiency and community centric data centre that has been carefully considered which we will continue to carefully consider.”

Mr Uidam said he hoped the proposal would bring new jobs to the area during construction and operation and engage community businesses for future data centre maintenance work.

“We have been active in and around communities for almost 20 years and we really hope to continue to be,” he said.

“There’s certainly been some real opinions that we respect and have had a collaborative conversation with.”

Mr Uidam said the community concerns that CDC have actively addressed included noise, water use and community benefits.

“I believe we have actively addressed a lot of concerns, but we’ve certainly heard the community’s concerns as well and we’re taking those notes back to consider around what we can do to help make sure that any potential application here can be appropriate for the community,” he said.

“We’re hoping to continue engagement.”

As the evening rally crowd dispersed, the sound of tennis balls being struck by a lone racquet on the Bruce Elliott Reserve court reverberated, accompanied by children’s voices in the playground echoing the call of the march, chanting, “Hey, ho, no data centre”.

More information on the CDC proposal can be found online.