The CEC’s paper titled, Powering the digital economy: Resolving competing energy demands between households and data centres, sets out how data centres can enter into the market expanding Australia’s overall electricity supply and protecting existing electricity users while unlocking jobs and investment across regional communities. “Every data centre can help unlock new generation and storage to grow our overall supply of electricity and ultimately deliver opportunities for the regional communities hosting that infrastructure. The CEC’s proposed framework would require new data centres to purchase their electricity from new renewable energy projects, complemented by renewable energy certificates in the interim while new wind and solar farms are being constructed. The approach would create a flexible contracting arrangement that delivers a strong investment signal for new renewable energy while providing a solution for data centre operators to manage their energy needs with delivery timelines of new generation. Importantly, the framework ensures new electricity supply enters the grid and avoids data centres competing with existing users such as households and businesses.