Project Ares, by the numbers — a gigawatt data centre and gas plant in the Barkly

About these numbers. Figures below come from Energy North's own referral and public materials, and from government and peer-reviewed sources (listed at the end). This is a proposal — capacities and details can change — and where a figure is our own estimate (for example, how much gas the plant would burn), we say so.

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.

What's at stake<br>This is the country in question.

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.

Greater Bilby — a Vulnerable species recorded on Murranji Station, in the sandplain country the project would clear.<br>© James Bennett, CC BY-NC 4.0

Great Egret — Lake Woods, downstream, is the only known inland breeding site in the NT for this species.<br>© Mike Baird, CC BY 2.0

Grey Falcon — one of Australia's rarest raptors; the project's eastern corridor crosses its habitat along Bucket Creek.<br>© David Cook, CC BY-NC 4.0

Species photos are illustrative of each species, not taken at this site.

The savanna woodland of the project area. What the proponent frames as degraded pastoral land is living Bilby country. Source: EPBC Referral 03507 (Attachment 3).

The basics<br>What is being proposed?

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.

The compute 1 gigawatt (1,000 MW) of IT capacity at full build — a hyperscale AI data centre campus.

The power ~3,000 MWp of solar, 16 GWh of batteries, and a ~1,038 MW gas-fired power station. Off-grid.

The water Up to ~4 GL a year pumped from the Cambrian Limestone Aquifer via a new borefield.

The land A ~186,000 ha project area, with up to ~19,150 ha of ground disturbance.

The build Delivered in phases (Phase 1 ~500 MW), with ~$11.9 billion cited for Phase 1 alone.

The extras A workforce village, a 2,000 m airstrip, a rail siding, a gas pipeline, and internal roads.

Gas & climate · sheer scale<br>The scale is hard to picture. So compare it.

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.

>2×

the entire Top End grid

Ares needs ~1,000 MW. The whole Darwin–Katherine system that powers ~165,000 people has ~476 MW of generation and peaks around ~290 MW.

~3×

Channel Island Power Station

Its ~1,038 MW gas plant alone is roughly three times the Territory's main power station (~310 MW).

~1,600

Olympic pools of water / year

Up to ~4 GL a year from the aquifer — about four to five Olympic pools' worth every day.

≈ Gove

worth of gas, potentially

At the run-hours its plant sizing implies, the gas station could burn ~30–40 PJ of gas a year — comparable to the whole Gove alumina refinery.

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.

Gas & climate<br>Is it really "renewable"?

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.

16 GWh of storage is about one night's power. Against a continuous load of roughly 1.2 GW, the battery gives under a day of autonomy — nowhere near enough to ride through cloudy, wet-season stretches. Something has to fill the gap, every night and every dull day.

Solar~3,000 MWp — real, and large, but it only generates in daylight and can't meet the full daily demand on its own.

Gas~1,038 MW — sized at roughly 100% of the facility's load, i.e. able to run the whole site by itself. On its own plant sizing, gas looks like a co-primary, high-running source (we estimate ~35–45% of annual energy), not a trickle backup.

HydrogenThe plant is called "hydrogen-ready," but green hydrogen at this scale is not commercially available, and no trigger, date or commitment to convert is given.

EmissionsNot quantified anywhere in the referral — no...