Australia’s data centre and renewable energy land market has descended into chaos, with landowners holding strategically located properties being inundated with conflicting offers, unrealistic timelines and opportunistic operators with little to no experience closing deals.
That is the assessment of Daniel Moroko, Director of Rok Solid, Australia’s most experienced renewable energy and data centre land brokerage.
“We don’t enjoy doing data centre deals. They are frustrating and frankly not what we set out to do. We fell into this space by necessity. The volume of calls we receive from overwhelmed landowners has become impossible to ignore,” Daniel Moroko, Director, Rok Solid said.
“I spoke with a landowner in Moorabool, one of Victoria’s hottest locations for data centres and BESS projects. Within four weeks he had received offers of $5 million (USD 3.5 million), $14 million and $20 million. All with exclusivity terms ranging from 30 days to four years. He had no idea which offer was real, which operator was credible, or which terms actually protected him.”
The experience is far from isolated. An excavation company owning land adjacent to a substation recently posted about their property on LinkedIn and were immediately inundated with enquiries. Option fees ranging from $20,000 to $2 million arrived within days.
“It is extremely confusing for landowners. They are being approached by data centre operators, renewable energy developers, property speculators and corporate agents who were selling sheds six months ago and are now calling themselves National Directors of Data Centres. None of them have closed a single data centre land deal,” Moroko said.
A market without guardrails
The convergence of the data centre and renewable energy sectors has created an extraordinary dynamic. Every major renewable energy developer is now attempting to pivot into data centres. Every data centre operator is exploring battery energy storage. And in the middle sits a growing cohort of landowners who own the one thing both sectors need. Strategically located land with high voltage transmission infrastructure.
The problem is that demand has dramatically outpaced expertise. With the sector wrapped in non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and genuine deals rarely discussed publicly, it is almost impossible for landowners to distinguish credible offers from speculative ones.
“Everyone is so wrapped up in NDAs that no one can actually talk about real deals. That information vacuum is being filled by people making promises they cannot keep,” Moroko said.
“What’s ludicrous is that landowners are trying to negotiate these deals themselves. We are talking about multi-million dollar, highly complex transactions with sophisticated operators who do this for a living. These people need proper representation from someone who has actually closed deals.”
For landowners currently holding land with high voltage transmission infrastructure, Rok Solid’s message is simple: do not accept the first offer. Do not sign long exclusivity periods without representation. And verify the developer and their track record.
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