Firmus Locks In 12-Year Energy Deal With Gunvor for AI Factories

Australian AI factory platform developer Firmus has signed a 12-year deal with Swiss commodities trader Gunvor Group to underwrite 1.2 GW of new renewable generation and 1.5 GWh of new battery storage by 2032 in South Australia. The 600 MW firm power agreement ties the construction of AI compute infrastructure to the build-out of generation and storage assets that would not otherwise exist. It is the first major commercial deal supporting the commitments set out in Firmus’s Australian Energy and Water Policies, also released Tuesday.

The deal bundles three elements that Australian corporate power purchase agreements typically keep separate, new renewable generation, battery firming capacity, and demand-side flexibility, into a single commercial structure with a commodities trader as the intermediary. The first battery to reach financial close under the deal is Koolunga, a 200 MW / 800 MWh grid-forming battery near Brinkworth in South Australia’s Mid North, developed by GreenPoint Energy and targeted for commercial operations in Q1 2028.

Firmus Locks In a 12-Year Power Deal With Gunvor

Firmus Technologies, the Sydney-based AI factory platform developer, said the agreement with Gunvor is the first major commercial arrangement supporting its Australian Energy and Water Policies. Gunvor will supply electricity to Firmus’s South Australia operations from mid-2027, providing 600 MW of firm power for the first phase of Project Southgate, the company’s strategy to develop large-scale AI factory campuses across regional Australia. The two companies described the agreement as a model for how commodity traders can support industrial energy users. The 12-year wholesale energy supply agreement was announced on the same day Firmus released its Australian Energy and Water Policies. Gunvor is one of the world’s largest independent commodities trading companies, with main trading hubs in Geneva, Singapore and Houston.

The supply will underpin the first phase of Firmus’s South Australian AI factory campuses at Tailem Bend and Stirling North, representing 2.7 GW of planned capacity. Under the agreement, Gunvor will support the development of 1.2 GW of new renewable generation and 1.5 GWh of new battery storage by 2032 to supply Firmus’s planned South Australian expansion. The deal is structured so that Gunvor takes the market and tenor risk needed to draw investment into the long-dated renewable and firming capacity that the energy transition requires. The Gunvor Group trades in more than 100 countries and generated US$144 billion in revenue in 2025.

“We’re building our AI Factories in regional South Australia because they’re the right locations for large-scale AI infrastructure and the energy investment that goes with it,” Oliver Curtis, Co-CEO of Firmus, said in the announcement. Curtis also called Koolunga the first example of the energy commitment already underway. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas separately welcomed the deal, calling it evidence that the state’s clean energy transition is attracting the industries of the future.

The full 12-year South Australia energy agreement announcement sets out the parties’ commitments in more detail. Both releases include the new build pipeline, the demand response terms, and the rollout schedule for the Tailem Bend and Stirling North campuses.

What the Bundled Structure Commits To

The deal does not mirror a typical Australian corporate power purchase agreement, which usually covers a single generation asset and leaves firming to the market. Instead, it bundles 1.2 GW of new renewable generation, the firming capacity that makes that supply dispatchable, and 220 hours per year of demand-side flexibility into a single commercial structure with a commodities trader as intermediary. Gunvor coordinates the renewable procurement, the storage offtake, and the long-term supply to Firmus through one commercial solution. The structure departs from how most large energy users have historically procured electricity in Australia. Firmus effectively outsources the complexity of building a firmed renewables portfolio to a counterparty with the trading and origination capabilities to coordinate multiple assets and risk instruments.

The renewable generation commitment is sized to match the data centre load plus the storage charging load, with both growing over the agreement’s life. The battery storage is the firming capacity that makes the renewable supply dispatchable, and Koolunga accounts for more than half of Firmus’s initial contracted firming requirement. The storage component provides firming capacity that the renewables alone cannot supply.

Firmus has also committed to cut its electricity consumption for up to 220 hours each year when wholesale prices exceed agreed thresholds. The company framed this as a deliberate concession to relieve pressure on wholesale prices during grid stress. The load functions as a grid asset that can be dialed back when prices spike. That demand response is the third leg that lets the renewable-plus-storage portfolio function as firm power.

Koolunga Battery Starts the Storage Build

The first battery to reach financial close under the Gunvor structure is Koolunga, a 200 MW / 800 MWh grid-forming battery energy storage system being developed by GreenPoint Energy near Brinkworth in South Australia’s Mid North. GreenPoint Energy is the Australian renewables subsidiary of Singapore-based Equis. Led by co-CEOs Roby Camagong and Mahesh Reddy Indluri. The GPE founders have raised and managed AUD $6.1 billion of equity across renewable energy and energy transition assets in 10 countries. That capital base is what lets the developer take a long-tenor offtake from a single counterparty.

Koolunga is targeted for commercial operations in Q1 2028 and is located adjacent to ElectraNet’s Brinkworth 275 kV substation. GenusPlus was awarded an approximately AU$110 million EPC contract to build the project in April 2026. GreenPoint Energy announced financial close on Koolunga alongside the Firmus-Gunvor agreement. The grid-forming specification indicates the system will provide synthetic inertia and fast frequency response, alongside energy arbitrage.

Koolunga has been awarded a Capacity Investment Scheme contract by the federal government, which GreenPoint Energy said reinforced its strategic importance in supporting grid stability. GreenPoint Energy described the deal structure as a scalable framework for data centre customers as demand for reliable power continues to accelerate. The CIS contract sits alongside the Gunvor offtake to underwrite the build.

Koolunga represents more than half of Firmus’s initial contracted firming requirement, a single-asset share that is unusually large for a grid-forming BESS in Australia. The 200 MW / 800 MWh project sits in a region already hosting some of the highest renewable energy penetration of any connected grid globally. That location lets the battery soak up excess daytime solar and discharge when wind drops. GreenPoint said the structure is intended to provide a scalable framework for future data centre customers. The deal also demonstrates that a single storage asset can anchor a multi-asset supply portfolio.

Gunvor’s Bid to Become an Energy Middleman

Gunvor’s role is to take the market and tenor risk that comes with underwriting new generation, storage, and demand flexibility simultaneously. The Firmus deal is structured so that Gunvor coordinates the renewable procurement, the storage offtake, and the long-term supply to Firmus, providing what the company described as a single commercial solution for a multi-asset, multi-risk energy requirement. As power demand accelerates globally, Gunvor is positioning itself as a broader energy solutions provider that can mobilise capital, manage risk, and deliver physical supply to support strategic infrastructure projects. The full long-term supply agreement and Koolunga offtake terms are detailed in Gunvor’s announcement.

David Maher, Head of APAC Power Trading and Origination at Gunvor, framed the deal as evidence that commodity traders can play a critical role in making the AI buildout possible. The Firmus agreement is Gunvor’s second major Australian move in recent weeks. It followed regulatory approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to acquire the retail business of Australian renewables outfit Zen Energy. Gunvor trades in more than 100 countries and generated revenue of US$144 billion in 2025. The structure is intended to provide a model for future customer-led energy solutions across the National Electricity Market.

This transaction demonstrates how long-term customer demand can help unlock renewable supply, firming and risk management through a single commercial solution.

Regulators Are Catching Up to Big Batteries and Big Loads

Fire and Rescue NSW published a position statement earlier in 2026 mandating 240/240/240 fire resistance levels for the bounding construction of lithium-ion battery storage rooms in data centres, citing the unknown fire behaviour of batteries installed within enclosed compartments. The rating applies to walls, floors, and ceilings that enclose the room, with FRNSW explicitly stating it does not support any reduction in fire resistance levels for such rooms. The agency notes that temperatures generated in lithium-ion battery fires may exceed those anticipated under the Australian standard AS1530.4 used to rate construction materials. The 240-minute fire resistance rule for lithium battery rooms documents the technical reasoning behind the position.

The rule was issued as part of a national conversation about how to manage the intersection of large battery storage and critical data centre infrastructure. On 23 March 2026, the Australian Government released its National Data Centre Expectations, setting out five policy expectations for new data centres and AI infrastructure projects. The five national data centre expectations page from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources lists them in full. The Albanese Government expects data centres to underwrite new renewable power supply and pay their full share of new grid connectivity so costs are not passed to consumers. The Expectations represent a deliverable of the National AI Plan released in December 2025.

Together, the FRNSW position and the federal expectations set the rules of the road any large battery-plus-data-centre pairing in Australia must now navigate, even though Firmus’s Tailem Bend and Stirling North sites are in South Australia rather than NSW. The FRNSW statement does not oppose the use of lithium-ion batteries in data centres but instead sets out the fire safety conditions under which their use is acceptable, a regulatory posture meaningfully different from prohibition. Battery storage is also increasingly central to data centre power quality management for fast-response applications that diesel generators cannot match. For hyperscale AI workloads specifically, large-scale battery storage has become a primary tool for smoothing the rapid, unpredictable power draw of GPU clusters.

These expectations cover national interest, the energy transition, water sustainability, Australian jobs, and research and innovation. In return for meeting them, the government has committed to prioritise projects in the regulatory approval processes. The five policy expectations are:

• Prioritise Australia’s national interest.
• Support Australia’s energy transition.
• Use water sustainably and responsibly.
• Invest in Australian skills and jobs.
• Strengthen research, innovation and local capability.

Why South Australia, and Why Now

South Australia has some of the highest renewable energy penetration of any connected grid globally, but it is also exposed to weather-driven swings in supply. The state has nine operating big batteries, most of which deliver more than two hours of storage. The state recently swung from three days of more than 100% renewables to its worst wind drought in seven years. Koolunga and the new fleet of batteries being built now average more than four hours of storage, with another six winning contracts last month to deliver eight hours.

That mismatch makes South Australia a natural test bed for an industrial AI energy model that pairs hyperscale compute with dispatchable renewable supply. The Firmus agreement ties the construction of the AI Factory campuses to the development of generation and storage assets that would not otherwise exist. That structure aligns with the federal government’s National Data Centre Expectations on the underwriting of new renewable supply. Firmus has staked its South Australian bet on this combination, having raised $505 million at a $5.5 billion valuation in April 2026 with NVIDIA and Coatue among the backers. The agreement also makes Firmus the anchor customer for the Koolunga BESS, the first major storage component under the broader Firmus-Gunvor supply portfolio.

Firmus framed the demand response commitment as part of that broader commitment to the grid, treating its load as a grid asset that flexes with the system. The deal turns on a single question for Australia: whether AI demand fights the energy transition or helps to fund it. The first answer will come when electricity starts flowing from mid-2027.

AI is going to be one of the largest new sources of electricity demand Australia has ever seen. The question is whether that demand fights the energy transition or helps to fund it.