The Australian Energy Market Commission advised federal and state energy ministers on 5 August that data centres should surrender Renewable Electricity Guarantee of Origin certificates against their consumption1. AEMC writes the national electricity rules, and a REGO is the tradable proof that a megawatt-hour came from renewable generation. The same advice asks operators to show that new demand is backed by new firm capacity, to register as market participants, and to accept connection terms that reward demand shifting and co-location with generation2. A final determination on technical access standards falls due in late October.
Registration is the part that changes a data centre's legal position rather than its bill. A registered participant sits inside the market's obligations and dispatch machinery instead of buying power through a retailer at the edge of it, which is what makes the demand-shifting terms enforceable rather than aspirational. The REGO surrender does something narrower: it stops an operator claiming a renewable supply it has not retired certificates for.
Ireland's regulator reached a similar destination by another route, reopening connections with renewable and on-site generation conditions attached. AEMC is advising rather than deciding, and ministers can take the advice, dilute it or leave it. The late-October determination on access standards is the piece that binds without them.
