Project Ares, by the numbers. A gigawatt data centre and gas plant

8 min read Original article ↗

Proposed : Murranji Station, Barkly Region, NT

Closes 20 Aug 2026 Have your say → Build a submission to the NT EPA in 5 minutes.

A gigawatt data centre with its own gas power station.

Project Ares would build one of Australia's largest AI data centres, running on a gas-fired power station bigger than the entire Darwin–Katherine grid, on a remote cattle station in the Barkly. Here is what the proponent's own numbers add up to.

Artist's impression. Illustrative render supplied by the proponent: not a photograph

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the country on and around Murranji Station - including the Newcastle Waters–Murranji native title holders. We recognise their continuing connection to this land and its waters. Traditional Owners have their own voice and processes in decisions about this country; this page is intended to inform the wider community, not to speak for or ahead of the land owners.

What's at stake

This is the country in question.

The project area, and the catchment downstream of it, are home to threatened and migratory wildlife, much of it in country the ecology report never surveyed.

Species photos are illustrative of each species, not taken at this site.

Aerial view of open savanna woodland over red soil on the Sturt Plateau
The savanna woodland of the project area. What the proponent frames as degraded pastoral land is living Bilby country. Source: EPBC Referral 03507 (Attachment 3).

The basics

What is being proposed?

Energy North Pty Ltd wants to build Project Ares - a hyperscale AI data centre with its own power and water supply - on Murranji Station, about 50 km north-west of Elliott and 683 km south of Darwin. Because there is no grid out there, the project would generate all its own electricity and pump its own water.

The compute1 gigawatt (1,000 MW) of IT capacity at full build: a hyperscale AI data centre campus.

The power~3,000 MWp of solar, 16 GWh of batteries, and a ~1,038 MW gas-fired power station. Off-grid.

The waterUp to ~4 GL a year pumped from the Cambrian Limestone Aquifer via a new borefield.

The landA ~186,000 ha project area, with up to ~19,150 ha of ground disturbance.

The buildDelivered in phases (Phase 1 ~500 MW), with ~$11.9 billion cited for Phase 1 alone.

The extrasA workforce village, a 2,000 m airstrip, a rail siding, a gas pipeline, and internal roads.

Gas & climate · sheer scale

The scale is hard to picture. So compare it.

A grid-connected data centre in a city hides its scale inside infrastructure that already exists. Ares has to build all of it - power station, gas, solar panels, batteries, borefield, pipeline - from scratch, in an empty landscape. So every part of it is enormous on its own.

>2×

the entire Top End grid

Ares needs ~1,000 MW. The whole Darwin–Katherine system that powers ~165,000 people has ~476 MW of generation and peaks around ~290 MW.

~3×

Channel Island Power Station

Its ~1,038 MW gas plant alone is roughly three times the Territory's main power station (~310 MW).

~1,600

Olympic pools of water / year

Up to ~4 GL a year from the aquifer. That's about four to five Olympic pools' worth every day.

≈ Gove

worth of gas, potentially

At the run-hours its plant sizing implies, the gas station could burn ~30–40 PJ of gas a year: comparable to the whole Gove alumina refinery.

Notes: The Gove refinery's ~40 PJ/yr peak gas demand was so large it justified a ~1,000 km, ~$1 billion pipeline across the Territory. Ares similarly depends on a new gas trunk line and spur pipeline. The gas-burn figure is a calculated range because the referral does not state the plant's run-hours or efficiency. That missing detail is itself part of the concern.

Gas & climate

Is it really "renewable"?

Project Ares is described as designed to transition to renewable-powered operations, with gas as a "reliability mechanism," not the main source. On the project's own figures, that is hard to sustain.

16 GWh of storage is about one night's power. Against a continuous load of roughly 1.2 GW, the battery gives under a day of autonomy. Useful, but nowhere near enough to ride through cloudy, wet-season stretches. Something has to fill the gap, every night and every dull day.

Illustrative render of the proposed facility: white data-hall buildings beside a gas-plant compound of storage tanks and pipework, with a solar field behind, ringed by a security fence in red-dirt scrub
The gas-plant compound (tanks and pipework, right of the data halls) that a ~1,038 MW power station implies, sitting alongside the solar field. Artist's impression - an illustrative render of the proposal, not a photograph of a built facility.
  • Solar~3,000 MWp - real, and large, but it only generates in daylight and can't meet the full daily demand on its own.
  • Gas~1,038 MW - sized at roughly 100% of the facility's load, i.e. able to run the whole site by itself. On its own plant sizing, gas looks like a co-primary, high-running source (we estimate ~35–45% of annual energy), not a trickle backup.
  • HydrogenThe plant is called "hydrogen-ready," but green hydrogen at this scale is not commercially available, and no trigger, date or commitment to convert is given.
  • EmissionsNot quantified anywhere in the referral - no tonnes, no annual figure.

Ranking: This is one of the largest AI DC proposals currently in Australia, and the second largest new gas power station. Ares appears to be the only project that is simultaneously a gigawatt-scale AI data centre and a gigawatt-scale gas power station.

Cumulative impacts · the water grab

One aquifer. Many straws. One wetland downstream.

Ares would draw from the Cambrian Limestone Aquifer (the Wiso zone), and it is far from the only project reaching for the same water. This region drains inland to Lake Woods, a nationally important wetland that fills with up to 116,000 waterbirds and migratory shorebirds.

Thousands of Australian Pelicans massed along the tree-lined edge of Lake Woods, with cormorants flying low over the water
Australian Pelicans at Lake Woods, downstream of the project in the same catchment. The living wetland this water grab would affect. Photo: © Lorraine Poth.

Lake Woods is listed on the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia, is a Northern Territory Site of Conservation Significance, and is a recognised Important Bird Area.

Map showing the project's four study blocks and Lake Woods conservation area to the south-east, in the same inland-draining catchment
The project area (Blocks A–D) and, to the south-east, Lake Woods and its conservation area, in the same inland-draining catchment. Source: EPBC Referral 03507, Attachment 3, Figure 2-1 (EcOz).

Who's reaching for the same water

  • AresUp to ~4 GL/yr for the data centre and its power station.
  • Project SolA green-ammonia project by the same company, on the same station, sharing the same borefield and aquifer. Its water demand is not yet public, but green ammonia is very water-intensive.
  • CottonA current application to take over 10,000 ML across Newcastle Waters and Tandyidgee stations, immediately downstream, toward Lake Woods.
  • Gas / petroleumThe water plan already sets aside 10,000 ML/yr for petroleum activities in the same system.

The region is managed as an arid zone, which permits drawing down stored groundwater over decades, on the assumption that recharge is minimal and little depends on the water. But the same aquifer is a living, connected karst system with its own unique fauna, feeds springs, and underpins the Lake Woods catchment. The project's eastern works cross the very creeks that flow to the lake and the referral does not assess that downstream effect.

What happens next

Where the decisions get made

Project Ares is being assessed at two levels: federally, under the national environment law (EPBC Act), and by the Northern Territory through an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The federal referral's short public comment window has now closed; the NT EIS is where the water, gas, cumulative impacts and local knowledge get examined in detail, and where Territorians have a real chance to be heard.

Now put it on the record.

The NT EPA is deciding what this project must be assessed on, and public submissions shape that. You don't need to be an expert. In about five minutes, in your own words, you can ask them to examine the hard questions.

Build my submission → Free · no sign-in · guided, in your own words · closes 20 August 2026

This site is a community information resource. It quotes the proponent's own figures and public, government and peer-reviewed sources, and flags where a number is an estimate. If you spot an error, we want to correct it.

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Spotted an error, have local knowledge to share, or want to stay informed? Get in touch, and join the list to hear when the NT EIS opens for public comment.

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Sources

Estimates on this page (gas burned per year; gas share of annual energy) are calculated from the capacities in the referral using standard assumptions, because the referral does not state the plant's run-hours or efficiency. They are presented as ranges, not facts.