HyperDC Files Plans for 400MW Data Center Campus West of Melbourne

HyperDC Pty Ltd has filed a planning permit application for a 400MW data center campus at 715 Ballan Road in Moorabool, about 75 kilometres west of Melbourne, as reported by Data Center Dynamics. The developer's website lists the 39-hectare parcel as MBL1 and states an intention to build 400MW of IT capacity. The filing lands a week after the state government released a new Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan.

Little else is public. HyperDC describes itself as a data center developer, and its director, Gerard Adamsons, previously worked at residential developer Villawood Properties. No customer, cost, or construction schedule has been disclosed.

The location carries the strategy. The parcel sits beside AusNet's Moorabool Terminal Station and the 300MW Victorian Big Battery, built with Tesla Megapacks. A high-voltage connection and grid-scale storage in the same precinct is the shortest route from land to energized capacity.

The Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan, announced on 22 September by Premier Ben Carroll, requires new data centers across Victoria to source their own renewable energy and storage, bans drinking water for cooling, blocks sites near schools, and sets a 150-metre buffer from homes. Developers must also fund local parks and TAFEs. "Data centres must power themselves, protect homes and pay their way," said Ben Carroll, Premier of Victoria.

ABC News reports the standards are not retrospective, so the eight applications already before the planning minister do not have to comply.

The industry has pushed back. Belinda Dennett, chief executive of Data Centres Australia, said the 150-metre setback is "not tied to actual impact" and singles out data centers for a restriction that warehouses and logistics facilities do not face. The Victorian Greens want a moratorium, and the issue is live ahead of the state election on 28 November.

Baxtel counts 60 data centers in the Melbourne market, operated by 25 providers, the second-largest market in Australia and ninth in Asia-Pacific, where AirTrunk's Melbourne MEL1 is the largest at 125MW and 10 facilities are under construction.

For a first-time developer, the Moorabool filing bets that connection rights and an early application beat a tightening policy regime. That bet will be copied while the exemption for projects already before the minister holds, and the cluster forming around the Moorabool Terminal Station shows where Victorian capacity is heading. Proposals like it will ultimately be judged on whether they can sign the renewable supply the state now demands.

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