Australia is in the middle of a data centre surge.
Thanks to the boom in digital demand (including the rise of AI and cloud computing), hyperscale facilities are being built in Melbourne, Sydney, and beyond.
Australia currently ranks in the world’s top ten data centre markets, and is projected to enter the top three within a decade. As of 2025, data centres accounted for about 1% of the nation’s electricity consumption, which is projected to reach up to 11% by 2035.
And behind every data centre is a cooling system that cannot afford to fail.
Project highlight: NEXTDC Data Centre, Sydney
We recently completed two custom-designed and built 60,000-litre Thermex chilled water storage tanks for the NEXTDC Data Centre in Sydney.
Both tanks were custom-engineered to the site’s specific spatial and load requirements before a single component was fabricated.
On installation day, that meant a talented crane operator manoeuvring two 60,000-litre vessels over the building, navigating powerlines with no margin for error.
The result is a chilled water system with the volume and stability to meet the continuous cooling demands of one of Australia’s most critical digital infrastructure facilities.
Why data centres need chilled water storage
A data centre runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, generating dense, continuous heat with no overnight cool-down and no weekend reprieve. A cooling system failure could lead to overheated servers, service outages, and critical data loss.
At that scale, chilled water is the only practical cooling medium. Water carries heat roughly 23.5 times more efficiently than air.
But a chilled water system needs a minimum volume of water in the circuit to operate reliably. When that volume is undersized, the chiller hits source temperature too quickly. The compressor shuts down, restarts, shuts down again.
Most commercial compressors are rated to just three starts per hour. When short cycling takes hold, wear accelerates and temperature control becomes erratic.
The fix is straightforward: add volume to the circuit, slow the rate of return water temperature change, and give the chiller the stable operating conditions it was designed for. A chilled water buffer tank is a storage vessel that connects to the chilled water loop to do exactly that.
Thermex TSIA Series Buffer Storage Tanks
The Thermex TSIA Series is our go-to for projects like data centres, where getting the buffer volume right really matters. They’re designed for use with chillers and boilers where the equipment capacity exceeds the system water volume.
The range runs from 500 to 60,000 litres in horizontal or vertical orientation, in mild or stainless steel, with polyurethane insulation as standard. Standard operating pressure is 700kPa, maximum 1500kPa. All tanks are Building J Code 2019 compliant.
For data centres, this means more stable return water temperatures, fewer compressor cycles, and cooling infrastructure that runs reliably for its full service life.
If your project needs a configuration that sits outside the standard range, our engineering team can work with you to create a custom solution, from initial sizing and design to installation.
Australia’s data centre pipeline isn’t slowing down.
As facilities get larger and cooling loads grow more demanding, the engineering behind the chilled water system matters more than ever. If you’re working on a project in this space, we’d love to hear about it.
Contact our team today to learn more about our data centre water system solutions.
