Nexa Advisory welcomes the opportunity to share our views and insights into the NSW Data Centre Consultation Paper. This submission echoes Nexa’s response to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into data centres and is focused solely on the implications of data centres for New South Wales’ electricity sector while supporting a broader principles-based framework to ensure data centre investment contributes positively to affordability, reliability, decarbonisation and the public interest.
Data centres are emerging as one of the most significant drivers of electricity demand growth in New South Wales and across the National Electricity Market (NEM).
However, if appropriately integrated into the energy system, they can play a central role in accelerating renewable energy investment and enabling the transition to net zero.
Nexa Advisory’s core position is that data centres should be treated as strategic demand-side infrastructure, not simply large electricity users.
This would directly address Principles 2 and 3 identified in the Consultation Paper by aligning new data centre demand with additional renewable generation and firming, helping to avoid upward pressure on wholesale prices and broader cost pass-through to households.
Realising this opportunity requires a shift from project-by-project approvals to a principles-based, whole-of-system governance framework. This framework must ensure that data centre development contributes positively to the energy transition, rather than imposing uncoordinated costs on the system or the community.
Read our submission here: Nexa Advisory submission – NSW Data Centre Consultation Paper