Australia’s energy market operator, AEMO, has created a standalone category for data centers in its electricity demand forecasts.

The decision was made in response to the rapid growth of the Australian data center market and subsequent impact on the broader national electricity market.

First reported by w.media, the new methodology will split facilities into commercial-scale, representing projects of 10MW and below, and industrial-scale, for projects larger than 10MW. Smaller sites will be forecast using historical demand trends and economic indicators, while larger projects will be tracked using direct data from operators, surveys, network providers, and market research.

Forecasts will incorporate factors such as staged commissioning, realistic load levels, and the likelihood of projects proceeding.

Through modeling these parameters, AEMO will be able to produce consumption forecasts that reflect the phased nature of many data centers' commissioning, in addition to the likelihood that the projects will actually be constructed.

In turn, projects will be assigned a distinct status: committed, anticipated, or proposed. The status will be determined by the defined criteria, with certain categories only included in each forecast scenario.

In AEMO’s “central” and “high” growth scenarios, anticipated projects with a grid connection application are counted up to the reliability obligation limit. Beyond that, all anticipated projects are included, while proposed ones with a connection application appear only in the “high” case.

The stricter criteria reflect the fast pace and uncertainty of data center development compared to other industrial loads.

Australia is seeing significant growth across its data center sector. AEMO estimates that data centers consumed up to 4TWh during the 2025 financial year, accounting for around 2.2 percent of total demand. By 2030, it is expected that data centers' share in electricity consumption could jump to at least eight percent, with some estimates as high as 15.

Major hyperscalers are flocking to the country, with Amazon announcing plans in June to invest AU$20 billion (US$13bn) by 2029 in expanding data center infrastructure in the country.

Stack Infrastructure is also a major player. In April, the company filed an application to develop a 450MW data center campus in Sydney.