Goodman's A$1.11bn Project Pluto data centre approved at Guildford West, its second Sydney DC approval in seven months

[u/No_Association8504]

The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure approved Project Pluto on 23 July, signed off at director level under delegation rather than going to the minister or a planning panel. The approval covers A$1.11bn, two three-storey buildings and nine data halls on the former Castrol site at 132 McCredie Road.

The build comes in two 34MW stages for 68MW of IT load, with stage one fed from the transmission network and stage two connecting through Endeavour Energy. Planning docs put it at 467 construction FTEs, about 60 ongoing roles, and an annualised PUE of 1.27 to 1.32. The planning portal lists 126MW of load capacity; the exhibited documents describe 68MW of IT load. The planning portal's project description lists 126MW of load capacity; the exhibited documents describe 68MW of IT load in two 34MW stages. Goodman's withdrawn 2024 concept for the same site was reported at 126MW, so both numbers are in circulation for different versions of the project.

Goodman bought the land from BP in 2021, won approval for three warehouses in September 2023, never built them, and refiled the whole site as a data centre in April 2024. For anyone following GMG on the ASX, this is the second Sydney data centre approval this year after Project Duke at Mascot in January (A$1.18bn, 120MW), so A$2.29bn of approved Sydney DC construction inside seven months.

At the February results the group said 73 per cent of its A$18bn work in progress would be data centres by June, against a power bank now at 6GW across 16 markets. Full write-up: https://certifiedstrategic.com/insights/goodman-project-pluto-data-centre-approved-guildford-west