Project Ares would build one of Australia's largest AI data centres — and, to run it, a 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, borefield, pipeline — from scratch, in an empty landscape. So every part of it is enormous on its own.
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.
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.
Ranking: This looks like the second largest AI DC proposal 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.
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.
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.
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 will close its short public comment window on 13th July; the NT EIS is where the water, gas, cumulative impacts and local knowledge get examined in detail — and where the next real chance to be heard will open.
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.
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.
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.