600 MW Deal Puts SA on the Map for AI Power

Firmus locked a 12-year, 600 MW deal with Gunvor to power South Australian AI campuses with new solar, wind, and battery storage.

1 Jul 2026

Firmus Technologies, an Australian data centre developer, has signed a 12-year agreement with commodities trader Gunvor Group for 600 megawatts of electricity to supply artificial intelligence data centres in South Australia.

Signed on June 29, it requires Gunvor to build 1.2 gigawatts of new renewable generation and 1.5 gigawatt-hours of battery storage by 2032. Firmus said the new capacity would not otherwise have been built without the contract.

A key part of the arrangement is a long-term agreement to buy output from a 200MW, 800MWh battery storage project near Brinkworth, in South Australia's Mid North, being developed by GreenPoint Energy. The battery uses grid-forming technology, which helps stabilise electricity networks with high shares of wind and solar. South Australia already relies heavily on renewables for its power supply.

To meet Australia's National Data Centre Expectations, government guidance issued in March, the arrangement ties new data centre development to additional renewable power and storage capacity, rather than allowing data centres to draw on existing supply.

Oliver Curtis, co-chief executive of Firmus, said the choice of location was deliberate. "We're building our AI Factories in regional South Australia because they're the right locations for large-scale AI infrastructure and the energy investment that goes with it," he said.

Among the largest agreements of its kind in Australia, it reflects growing pressure on data centre developers globally to demonstrate that new computing capacity is matched by new clean power supply, rather than adding strain to existing grids.

Data centres built for AI workloads consume significantly more electricity than conventional facilities, a trend that has drawn scrutiny from regulators and grid operators worldwide as demand for computing power accelerates.

Whether the model can be replicated at scale remains an open question. Grid-forming battery projects of this size are still relatively rare, and their success in stabilising renewable-heavy networks will be watched closely by other developers considering similar arrangements elsewhere in Australia.