Sustainable Development | Spark opening large-scale data centre in Auckland

Spark has received resource consent to build a new, large-scale data centre on Auckland’s North Shore as part of a 43-hectare masterplan development with global surf park creators Aventuur.

In a world-first, the development will use an innovative heat exchange system enabling excess heat produced by the data centre to warm the water of the nearby surfing lagoon, while an onsite seven-hectare solar farm will supply renewable energy back into the data centre.

Michael Stribling, Spark General Manager of Infrastructure, says, “Accelerating growth in our data centre business is a core focus of Spark’s strategy, and with data usage increasing exponentially, particularly with the advent of generative AI, demand for capacity is growing rapidly. Spark is well positioned to capture its share of this growth, with our existing data centre network, complementary digital infrastructure such as our networks and subsea cable assets, our relationships with cloud hyperscalers, and our ability to provide products and services over the top.

“Receiving resource consent for our North Shore development is an exciting milestone. The site will become our third strategic Auckland location with capacity for a staged build of a 40MW campus over time.”

Matt Ryan, Customer and Growth Lead, Spark Data Centres, says, “As we expand our data centre footprint we want to do so with sustainability front of mind, and our North Shore development delivers on this ambition in a really innovative way. We are targeting LEED Gold design certification and industry leading power, water, and carbon usage effectiveness, providing strong sustainability credentials for our customers.”

While the onsite solar farm will only provide a small amount of the data centre’s annual energy needs, Spark’s investment into the development of new renewable energy capacity in New Zealand has kick-started its ambition to decouple its growth from emissions growth over time. In May, Spark announced a 10-year partnership with Genesis Energy, which will see the Company purchase 100% of the electricity generated by Genesis’ solar farm in Lauriston Canterbury. This will account for around 60% of Spark’s annual electricity needs and make a significant contribution to its science-based emissions reduction target (SBTi).

Co-founder of Aventuur, Richard Duff, says, “This is an exciting development for Auckland, and a great example of how innovation can create more sustainable solutions. We are thrilled to be working together with Spark to create a world-first symbiotic relationship between a surf park, data centre, and solar farm.”

Spark’s investment comes at a time when the global data centre market is experiencing rapid growth, and local capacity in New Zealand is in high demand – evidenced by all three global public cloud hyperscalers launching cloud regions in Auckland.

Spark’s existing data centre portfolio includes 22.3 MW of total capacity spread across its core market of Auckland as well as regional centres such as the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Spark’s potential development pipeline totals 70MW, meaning the company can grow its total data centre capacity to over 90MW in the future.

In Auckland, Spark will operate three strategic data centre locations – including its largest site at Takanini, its CBD site on Mayoral Drive, and the planned development on the North Shore.

Spark recently completed a 10MW expansion of its Takanini campus, which now has a total capacity of 12.3 MW. Design is underway to add a further ~15MW, with the potential for further campus expansions over time. While the 2.9MW CBD data centre is smaller than its peers, it is a strategically sought after site due to its customer ecosystem and location as a key connection point for international submarine cable systems and national networks. An adjacent Spark-owned site provides the potential to expand the CBD campus to 17.9MW in the future.