Retired ~2 GW thermal plant.
Read this pad as
Three desks
Developer
Can I get a pad, a connection, and cooling without waiting a decade?
- Transmission connections are being retained. That is not a published MW figure a developer can take to a bank.
- Time to power — likely 2032. Earliest plausible treats retained transmission as usable. Likely treats studies, partner process and fibre as the real path. Neither is a grid offer.
- Lake Liddell and closed-loop liquid are the thermal hypothesis. Evaporative towers exist at Bayswater for generation, not for a campus.
Financier
What MW is actually deliverable, and what would break the case?
- Announced none MW · 5-year scenario 100–500 MW (preliminary).
- A published connectable MW figure.
- No verified financing for a compute campus on this site.
Mayor / state
What is real on this land, and what would fail in public?
- Hub enabling works underway. Compute not approved.
- Retired ~2 GW thermal plant.
- Retired nameplate is not a connection offer.
Deliverable MW
Announced is not deliverable
Ranges are scenarios with an infrastructure class and a confidence band. They are not a grid offer.
Today
0 MW
The 500 MW battery is storage. It is not a verified 500 MW supply to a compute tenant.
High confidence
+3y
50–250 MW
A first load is conceivable if AGL and Transgrid actually offer a connection. Not a forecast.
Preliminary
+5y
100–500 MW
500 MW is a scenario aligned to the battery's scale, not an offtake.
Preliminary
+10y
250–1000 MW
1 GW would require a dedicated generation/firming and transmission story after Bayswater closes (by 2033).
Preliminary
- This is the flagship 'find the next Liddell' object: retired thermal plant, retained transmission, water, land, industrial buffer.
- Infrastructure exists. Commercially connectable capacity for a new large load is not published.
- Bayswater (2,715 MW) still operates until 2033. Shared site services and water are not automatically surplus.
- The battery (500 MW / 2 h, commercial June 2026) firms the NEM. It does not, on published evidence, feed a campus.
Why here
- Retired ~2 GW thermal plant.
- Retained transmission.
- 10,000 ha landholding.
- 500 MW battery now operating.
- AGL has named data centres as a possible partner class.
What is missing
- A published connectable MW figure.
- A DC planning application.
- Diverse fibre to the pad.
- A water allocation that does not assume Bayswater surplus.
Time to power
Earliest is not likely
- Earliest plausible
- 2029
- Likely
- 2032
Earliest plausible treats retained transmission as usable. Likely treats studies, partner process and fibre as the real path. Neither is a grid offer.
Energy
Exists ≠ connectable
Transmission connections are being retained. That is not a published MW figure a developer can take to a bank.
NEM NSW — Transgrid · Transgrid / AGL Macquarie site
Workload fit
- AI training / HPCConditionalThe textbook energy-seeking training site — if and only if MW is actually connectable.
- Industrial / mining AIConditionalHunter industrial and mine-region adjacency.
- Cloud / hyperscaleConditionalPossible as a large campus if fibre to Sydney is diverse. Latency is higher than metro.
- AI inferenceFailsUpper Hunter is the wrong geography for metro inference.
- Sovereign / defenceUnknownNo special defence adjacency evidenced.
- Edge / regionalFailsWrong product. This is a bulk-energy site.
Required for scale
- 100 MWPreliminary
A connection offer at the retained Liddell switchyard or an agreed Bayswater/Liddell rearrangement; fibre laterals.
- 250 MWPreliminary
System-strength and thermal studies; possible transformer works; confirmed water for cooling that does not starve Bayswater.
- 500 MWUnverified
A firming and transmission plan at battery scale; likely dedicated transformers; two fibre routes.
- 1000 MWUnverified
New generation and/or major transmission augmentation; post-Bayswater water and landform; not evidenced.
- 2000 MWUnverified
Replacement of the historic Liddell export scale with new generation plus load. Speculative.
Fibre
Upper Hunter is not a subsea landing and is not a Sydney metro fibre dense zone. Diverse long-haul to Sydney must be evidenced before a training campus is claimed as network-ready.
- Sydney: 15 ms
- Newcastle: 8 ms
- Singapore: — ms
Thermal / hazards
Upper Hunter — hot summers, industrial water assets.
Lake Liddell and closed-loop liquid are the thermal hypothesis. Evaporative towers exist at Bayswater for generation, not for a campus.
Cyclone: Not a cyclone geography.
Development
- landControl
- AGL. Controlled.
- planning
- Demolition consent 31 Jan 2025. Battery approved and built. No DC SSD evidenced.
- environmental
- Power-station demolition, ash dam, asbestos cells in the published enabling-works scope.
- approvalStatus
- Hub enabling works underway. Compute not approved.
- remediation
- In programme through 2027+ landform stages.
- contamination
- Expect power-station residues. RAP-level detail not extracted here.
- tenure
- AGL freehold/industrial energy landholding.
- construction
- Battery complete. Station demolition in progress (stacks felled May 2026).
Risk
- power
Retired nameplate is not a connection offer.
- fibre
Upper Hunter fibre diversity is the quiet failure mode for a training campus.
- water
Lake Liddell still serves Bayswater.
Graph
- liddell — OWNED_BY → AGL Energy
- liddell — CONNECTED_TO → Transgrid
- liddell — NEAR → Bayswater Power Station
- liddell — CANDIDATE_FOR → AI training / HPC
Evidence
- VerifiedExisting
Liddell Power Station shut down in April 2023. Neighbouring Bayswater is 2,715 MW coal, scheduled to close by 2033. Combined landholding is 10,000 hectares.
AGL Energy · AGL in the Hunter Region · published n/a · accessed 2026-09-18
- VerifiedExisting
The Liddell Battery is 500 MW / 2-hour and became commercially available in June 2026. This is storage, not a verified offtake for a data-centre tenant.
AGL Energy · Liddell Battery · published 2026-09-18 · accessed 2026-09-18
- Moderate confidenceSpeculative
AGL has stated that data centres are among potential partners under consideration at the Hunter Energy Hub. No data-centre project is approved or power-contracted on the evidence assembled here.
pv magazine Australia · AGL begins commissioning first 250 MW of Liddell battery · published 2026-03-20 · accessed 2026-09-18
- High confidenceExisting
AGL states critical infrastructure such as transmission connections will be retained as the site becomes the Hunter Energy Hub. Retention of assets is not equivalent to spare commercially connectable capacity.
AGL Energy · Liddell future land use and enabling works · published 2026-08-04 · accessed 2026-09-18