Southern Highlands residents have told the Land and Environment Court that the cumulative environmental damage wrought by gas-fired generators servicing regional data centres is being routinely ignored by planning authorities.
The dispute centres on an appeal by Nakar Property to construct a gas-powered energy generation facility in the Moss Vale enterprise corridor. As reported by ABC News NSW, local community advocates gathered this week to voice fierce resistance to the project, warning the court of unmonitored air pollution, persistent acoustic intrusion, and a stark divergence from state greenhouse reduction goals.
Southern Highlands community confronts gas proposal
Opponents argue that the Southern Highlands is being treated as an industrial sacrifice zone for digital infrastructure primarily servicing Sydney's corporate core. ABC News NSW reported that residents appeared before commission representatives to highlight concerns that localised exhaust plumes, elevated nitrogen dioxide levels, and ambient noise would degrade both rural amenity and established agricultural enterprises surrounding Moss Vale.
Nakar Property’s development application, initially refused by the local council, sought to secure a dependable private energy supply to underwrite prospective commercial operations. However, objectors contend that allowing private gas turbines without stringent regional oversight establishes a perilous planning loophole.
Artificial intelligence boom fuels decentralised generation
The legal skirmish unfolds amid an unprecedented expansion of data centre capacity across eastern Australia. Exponential demand for cloud storage, enterprise computing, and artificial intelligence models has driven tech operators to construct massive server facilities at the urban-regional interface.
Yet these high-density facilities require immense amounts of electricity around the clock. With the state's transmission network facing capacity bottlenecks and the scheduled retirement of coal-fired generators accelerating, developers have increasingly sought self-contained, on-site energy solutions to guarantee uninterrupted power. Gas-fired generators have emerged as a rapid, albeit carbon-intensive, stopgap.
Piecemeal planning obscures regional emissions footprint
Central to the community’s legal argument is the contention that statutory assessment frameworks assess such facilities in isolation. By evaluating individual gas plants on an ad hoc basis, planners risk failing to capture the aggregate emissions and environmental burdens accumulating across the Wingecarribee Shire and adjacent municipalities.
Environmental advocates argue that compartmentalising data facilities and their associated generation plants masks the true carbon footprint of the digital economy. If individual turbines are permitted to bypass broader strategic environmental assessments, total regional emissions could rise significantly, cutting across New South Wales’ legislated target of a 70 per cent emissions reduction by 2035.
Land and Environment Court verdict to set state precedent
The proceedings before the Land and Environment Court are being monitored closely by municipal councils and property developers across the state. With multiple data centre hubs earmarked for outer-metropolitan and regional zones, the Moss Vale judgment could dictate how local consent authorities evaluate private fossil-fuel energy infrastructure going forward.
A determination in favour of the community could compel infrastructure proponents to demonstrate that their energy supplies align directly with state net-zero planning principles. Conversely, an approval could open the door for similar decentralised fossil-fuel facilities across peri-urban New South Wales.