Artist’s impression of the Datagrid data centre at North Makarewa, near Invercargill. Meridian Energy has agreed to supply Datagrid with 100 megawatts of power from the 800MW Manapouri hydro scheme if the plan goes ahead. Hawaiki Cable founder Remi Galasso and CallPlus co-founder Malcolm Dick aim to have the Datagrid project operating in 2023. They hope to take advantage of the cool climate and cheap renewable power to become a hub for cloud computing. The Makarewa project still requires one of Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft to become an anchor tenant.
Barry Harcourt/Stuff
The Manapōuri Hydro Station would power the data centre and possibly Stewart Island.
Datagrid plans $500m hyperscale DC and two new subsea cables Sign in with LinkedIn
17 December 2020 | Natalie Bannerman Datagrid New Zealand has announced plans to build a new $500 million (A$700 million) hyperscale data centre in South Island, New Zealand.
The new facility, to be located in North Makarewa in Southland, will enable tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, to serve close to 20 million customers across eastern Australia and New Zealand.
The project has already garnered input from Meridian Energy which will deliver 100MW of power from its 800MW Manapouri hydro scheme to the Datagrid site.
Born the brainchild of Hawaiki Cable founder, Remi Galasso and CallPlus co-founder Malcolm Dick, the aim of Datagrid aims to replicate the success of other of the Icelandic data centre industry, which is known for its cool climate and cheap sustainable power to become of the biggest data and cloud hubs globally.
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Artist impression of Datagrid, a hyperscale data centre planned for near Invercargill. Photo / Supplied
OPINION:
Although this year has been borderline insane in many ways, there is positive business news coming in as well. One of them is that New Zealand could finally get its first hyperscale data centre, a facility that can scale up when needed to keep up with the world s burgeoning processing and information storage needs.
Hyperscale data centres in the region have all gone to Australia so far, despite New Zealand having some real sustainability advantages.
Meridian Energy s generation manager, Guy Waipara, has said it was “100 per cent” behind the scheme, which aims to capitalise on Southland’s cheap, renewable power and its cool climate. The power company has agreed to provide 100 megawatts of electricity, or about an eighth of the peak output of the Manapōuri hydro scheme, to power the data centre.
Supplied
An artist s impression of what the Datagrid facility in North Makarewa would look like. Datagrid has selected US-owned Aecom, which employs about 700 staff in New Zealand, to design the facility. Aecom’s previous and other current engineering projects have included consulting on Auckland’s City Rail Link, Britomart, Transmission Gulley and the New Zealand Defence Force headquarters in Wellington.
Meridian Energy has agreed to supply Datagrid with 100 megawatts of power from the 800MW Manapouri hydro scheme. Meridian generation manager Guy Waipara said the power company had been meeting fortnightly with Datagrid over the past few months. “Every time we catch up, we get more and more confident this project is looking positive,” he said. “Remi has got a very strong track record and is going about this business with a lot of intent.”
Icelandic power company Landvirkjun has helped to build up a data centre industry in Iceland. Now New Zealand may follow suit. Meridian could provide 100MW to Datagrid while still meeting its supply commitments to the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, he said.