CEWT 20 MW CRT Trigeneration

CEWT 20 MW CRT Trigeneration Latrobe Valley AI Data Centre — Resilience & Storage Summary Preliminary engineering/investor note • 7 October 2026 1. Executive summary CEWT’s proposed Latrobe Valley configuration combines renewable electricity, a modest short-duration BESS/UPS layer and Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) using recycled methane (RSNG) as the long-duration firming medium. The central proposition is: renewables supply the primary energy; batteries provide speed; CRT provides endurance. For a constant 20 MW AI data-centre load, three days of autonomous generation corresponds to 1,440 MWh of electricity. On the frozen 45.2% gas-engine electrical-efficiency basis, this requires approximately 229.4 t of methane. Using a preliminary liquid-methane density basis and 20% storage allowance, the corresponding gross RSNG/LNG storage envelope is about 650 m³. 2. Proposed three-layer resilience architecture Layer 1 — UPS/BESS: millisecond-to-minute continuity for GPU transients, switching, and ride-through. Layer 2 — Short-duration BESS: renewable smoothing and engine-transition support; a preliminary 2–4 hour range (about 40–80 MWh at 20 MW) should be evaluated. Layer 3 — CRT/RSNG: hours-to-days firming, with recycled methane acting as the strategic energy reserve. Normal operation should preferentially route renewable electricity directly to the data centre. PEM electrolysis and methanation should use allocated/surplus renewable energy to replenish the RSNG inventory. CRT generation is then dispatched during prolonged renewable shortfalls. 3. BESS versus RSNG — physical storage comparison Firming duration Electricity delivered Indicative BESS installed* CH₄ required Gross RSNG/LNG storage** 24 h 480 MWh 613 MWh 76.5 t ~216 m³ 48 h 960 MWh 1,227 MWh 152.9 t ~432 m³ 72 h 1,440 MWh 1,840 MWh 229.4 t ~648 m³ * Screening basis used in the working comparison: 90% BESS round-trip efficiency plus 15% energy reserve. ** Preliminary liquid-methane basis with 20% storage allowance; final tank sizing must include usable capacity, heel, boil-off, composition, and code requirements. 4. 72-hour CRT reserve calculation Continuous electrical load 20 MW Electrical energy for 72 h 1,440 MWh Frozen engine electrical efficiency 45.2% Required methane thermal input ≈3,186 MWhₜₕ Methane inventory ≈229.4 t CH₄ Simple Sabatier H₂ required to regenerate that inventory ≈114.7 t H₂ PEM electricity at 53 kWh/kg H₂ ≈6.08 GWh The 6.08 GWh figure is a reserve-regeneration calculation, not a claim of battery-like round-trip efficiency. The simple electricity→H₂→CH₄→engine pathway is inherently less efficient than a lithium-ion battery, which is why renewable electricity should feed the data centre directly whenever available and CRT should be used for long-duration firming rather than daily cycling. 5. PEM capacity sensitivity PEM capacity H₂ production @ 53 kWh/kg 72-h reserve recharge time Approx. days 20 MW 377 kg/h 304 h 12.7 40 MW 755 kg/h 152 h 6.3 60 MW 1,132 kg/h 101 h 4.2 80 MW 1,509 kg/h 76 h 3.2 84.4 MW 1,593 kg/h 72 h 3.0 Recommendation: retain the 20 MW PEM as the present demonstration basis rather than oversizing the electrolyser solely to refill an emergency reserve rapidly. At 20 MW, a completely depleted 72-hour reserve requires about 12.7 equivalent full-load days to regenerate. If reserve depletion is infrequent, gradual replenishment can be commercially preferable to installing 80+ MW of PEM capacity for a 20 MW data-centre demonstration. 6. Market comparison and positioning The emerging 20–30 MW AI data-centre segment provides a useful comparator for CEWT. Renewable+BESS projects demonstrate that developers are considering modular initial phases rather than only very large hyperscale campuses. CEWT’s differentiation is not that CRT should replace batteries: the design deliberately retains BESS for fast response while using chemical energy storage for prolonged firming. Investor positioning: do not compare CRT with a four-hour battery on $/kWh alone. Compare complete 24/7 resilience architectures. As firming duration extends from hours toward days, the physical storage requirement for a battery-only solution becomes very large, while the RSNG inventory remains compact. 7. Design basis to retain • AI data-centre load: constant 20 MW. • Generation: six gas engines, 20 MW net aggregate, modelled at 45.2% electrical efficiency. • PEM: retain 20 MW for the current demonstration basis; larger modules remain a sensitivity case. • Strategic RSNG reserve: approximately 229 t usable CH₄ for 72-hour autonomy; preliminary gross storage envelope ~650 m³. • BESS: size for UPS/transients and short-duration smoothing, not multi-day energy storage. • Cooling: retain liquid-cooling integration and evaluate dry/low-water heat rejection alongside useful recovery of engine and methanation heat. • Start-up: external RLNG can establish the initial carbon/methane inventory; CRT subsequently recycles captured carbon. 8. Important boundary conditions The 229.4 t CH₄ / 114.7 t H₂ calculation uses the simple CO₂ + 4H₂ → CH₄ + 2H₂O relationship to size the strategic reserve. It is not the final integrated CRT process mass balance. The detailed 20 MW Trigen model must continue to use the agreed CRT stoichiometry and H₂-rich syngas design basis. The 20 MW Latrobe Valley Trigen project must remain separate from the CEWT Green Iron / Western Australia case, including the much larger ~1.15 GW electrolyser requirement derived for that project. Values must not be transferred between the two designs. 9. Working investment proposition “Renewables supply the energy. Batteries provide speed. CRT provides endurance. Recycled methane provides the strategic energy reserve.” Next engineering step: close the full 20 MW CRT mass and energy balance, confirm CO₂ capture and methanation duties, select the short-duration BESS/UPS rating, and obtain vendor-based CAPEX/OPEX so the hybrid architecture can be compared with renewable+BESS-only alternatives on an equivalent availability basis.

THE DEFOSSILISED DATA CENTRE

THE DEFOSSILISED DATA CENTRE A New Architecture for the AI Era 20 MW CRT TRIGENERATION | FIRM POWER | INTEGRATED COOLING | CARBON RECYCLING | WATER STEWARDSHIP Designed for the future. Powered by circulation, not continuous fossil-carbon consumption. RENEWABLE ENERGY → H₂ RECYCLED CH₄ → 20 MW FIRM POWER CO₂ CAPTURE → CARBON RECYCLING POWER. COOL. CAPTURE. RECYCLE. REPEAT. CEWT is developing an integrated 20 MW net CRT Trigeneration platform for high-density AI and data-centre infrastructure. The architecture treats firm power, thermal energy, cooling, carbon and water as connected resources - not separate problems.   Carbon Recycling Becomes an Energy Asset DON'T JUST CAPTURE CARBON. RECYCLE IT. Conventional trigeneration can recover useful heat from onsite power generation. CRT goes further. Captured CO₂ is combined with renewable hydrogen to regenerate methane. The methanation reaction is exothermic, creating an additional thermal stream that can be recovered and integrated with cooling. 20 MW net continuous firm-power target ~19.4 MWth* prime-mover recoverable thermal resource ~8.9 MWth theoretical gross methanation heat ~28 MWth* combined gross thermal opportunity ~46% ADDITIONAL GROSS THERMAL RESOURCE FROM CARBON RECYCLING relative to the present prime-mover heat screening basis* Why waste heat when AI needs cooling? The additional heat created while closing the carbon loop can become a cooling asset rather than a rejected waste stream. At a screening absorption-chiller COP of 0.70, the theoretical 8.9 MWth methanation stream represents up to about 6.2 MW of incremental cooling potential before practical heat-recovery, temperature-grade and equipment losses are applied. DEFOSSILISATION IS NOT ONLY A CARBON BENEFIT. IN CRT, CLOSING THE CARBON LOOP CREATES AN ADDITIONAL ENERGY-INTEGRATION OPPORTUNITY. *Screening/design-basis figures. Final recoverable heat, temperature grade, cooling output and equipment performance remain subject to vendor validation and detailed integration engineering.   Cooling and Water Designed Together DON'T USE VALUABLE WATER UNNECESSARILY TO REJECT VALUABLE HEAT. High-density AI infrastructure is increasingly a power-and-cooling problem. CRT is designed to use recovered process heat productively and to minimise consumptive water demand through an integrated cooling and heat-rejection strategy. THERMAL RECOVERY Prime-mover heat plus additional carbon-recycling heat creates a larger thermal resource for useful cooling. INTEGRATED COOLING Recovered heat can support absorption chilling alongside the data centre's primary high-density cooling architecture. DRY HEAT REJECTION Dry cooling is targeted where technically appropriate to reduce dependence on evaporative water consumption. WATER CIRCULATION Methanation produces reaction water that can be recovered, treated and considered for reuse within the overall site water balance. ~7.0 t/h theoretical methanation reaction water DRY heat-rejection design objective PUE + WUE energy and water performance considered together Resource accountability ENERGY → CARBON → HEAT → COOLING → WATER Every MW has a destination. Every carbon molecule has a destination. Every unit of recoverable heat has a purpose. Every litre of water has a pathway.   From Fossil Carbon Consumption to Carbon Circulation CONVENTIONAL FIRM GAS POWER CEWT CRT TRIGENERATION Fossil methane ↓ Firm power ↓ CO₂ emission or separate capture ↓ Continuous fossil-carbon replenishment Recycled methane ↓ 20 MW firm power + recoverable heat ↓ CO₂ capture ↓ Renewable H₂ + methanation ↓ Recycled methane + additional thermal resource THE OBJECTIVE IS NOT TO ELIMINATE THE CARBON MOLECULE. IT IS TO ELIMINATE THE CONTINUOUS CONSUMPTION OF FOSSIL CARBON. A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND APPROACH TO DEFOSSILISED DATA-CENTRE INFRASTRUCTURE CEWT CRT integrates firm onsite power, carbon recycling, thermal-energy recovery, cooling and water stewardship within a single architecture. The 20 MW platform is being developed for the next generation of AI infrastructure, where time-to-power, cooling capacity, carbon management and water availability must be addressed together. DATA CENTRES NEED MORE THAN POWER. THEY NEED AN ENERGY ARCHITECTURE DESIGNED FOR THE FUTURE. Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) 20 MW CRT Trigeneration for AI Data Centres

MUST CAPTURED CO₂ ALWAYS BE STORED?

MUST CAPTURED CO₂ ALWAYS BE STORED? A recent S&P Global Energy report raises an important question for the next phase of carbon management. The global CCUS pipeline now exceeds 1,000 million tonnes per annum, yet S&P Global estimates that only around 25% of reported 2030 capacity is likely to come online on schedule under its risk-adjusted methodology. Horizons Clean Energy Expansion Week 2026 - CCUS Report.pdf One of the emerging differentiators is infrastructure. Shared CO₂ transport and storage hubs are increasingly helping projects reach sanction, while projects without access to such infrastructure face greater execution risk. Horizons Clean Energy Expansion Week 2026 - CCUS Report.pdf At the same time, another major change is occurring. S&P Global identifies rapidly growing data-centre electricity demand as a new use case for reliable gas-fired generation combined with carbon capture, estimating that data centres could account for approximately 10% of incremental global power demand by 2030. Horizons Clean Energy Expansion Week 2026 - CCUS Report.pdf This raises a broader engineering question: If we capture CO₂ from firm power generation, must we always transport and permanently store it? Or, where renewable hydrogen is available, can some captured CO₂ instead become a carbon resource—converted back into a fuel, used for firm power generation, captured again and recycled? The distinction is important. CCS: Capture → Transport → Storage Carbon Recycling: Capture → Conversion with renewable H₂ → Reuse → Capture again Carbon recycling does not eliminate the energy requirement. Renewable hydrogen must provide the energy required to regenerate the fuel, and the complete mass and energy balance must be economically justified. But where CO₂ transport and geological storage are difficult, and where firm power, heat, cooling and carbon management are required together, carbon recycling deserves serious consideration alongside conventional CCS. Perhaps the next stage of carbon management is not simply asking: “How much CO₂ can we capture?” but also: “What should we do with the carbon after we capture it?” Carbon is an element. Its sustainability depends on how we manage its cycle. #CarbonCapture #CCUS #CarbonRecycling #Hydrogen #DataCentres #FirmPower #CircularEconomy #EnergyTransition #PowerToX #Sustainability

Carbon Removal, Carbon Capture and Carbon Recycling Are Three Different Things

Carbon Removal, Carbon Capture and Carbon Recycling Are Three Different Things A great deal of climate discussion uses the words capture, removal and recycling almost interchangeably. From a process-engineering perspective, they describe very different things. Carbon capture asks: Can we separate CO₂ from an industrial gas stream before it reaches the atmosphere? That is an important first step. But capture alone does not answer the next question: Where does the captured carbon go? If it is compressed, transported and permanently stored underground, we have created a carbon capture and storage pathway. Carbon removal asks a different question: Can we remove CO₂ that is already in the atmosphere? Direct Air Capture, enhanced mineralisation and biological approaches are examples. Again, the carbon needs a final destination after it has been removed. Carbon recycling asks something fundamentally different: Can we prevent carbon from becoming a one-way material flow in the first place? Consider methane used for energy: CH_4 \rightarrow Energy \rightarrow CO_2 In the conventional system, the carbon journey effectively ends with CO₂ entering the atmosphere, being captured for storage, or requiring subsequent removal. But CO₂ still contains the carbon atom that originally entered as methane. If we supply renewable hydrogen: CO_2 + 4H_2 \rightarrow CH_4 + 2H_2O the carbon can be returned to methane and used again. The pathway becomes: CH₄ → Energy → CO₂ → CH₄ → Energy → CO₂ → CH₄ Now carbon is being treated as a circulating process material, while renewable hydrogen supplies new energy to the cycle. The same question applies to industrial syngas. If carbon monoxide is used as a reducing agent: FeO + CO \rightarrow Fe + CO_2 the process may have successfully reduced the iron oxide, but the carbon has not disappeared. It has simply moved from CO to CO₂. So describing a process as using syngas does not, by itself, tell us whether the carbon problem has been solved. We still have to ask: What happens to the CO₂? This is why CEWT believes carbon accounting should be approached in much the same way as a chemical engineer approaches a mass balance. Draw a boundary around the process. Identify every carbon-containing feed. Identify every carbon-containing product. Identify every recycle stream. Identify every purge, vent and fugitive loss. Then close the carbon balance. This leads to a very simple distinction: Carbon capture separates the carbon. Carbon removal retrieves carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon recycling gives captured carbon another useful cycle. None should be confused with the others, and each may have a role. But for industrial processes, perhaps the first question should be even simpler: Does every carbon atom entering the process have a defined destination? If we cannot answer that question, the carbon balance is not yet closed. At CEWT, that is the principle behind our Carbon Recycling Technology: Every molecule has a destination. Carbon should be no exception.

AI’s Next Bottleneck Is Not Computing — It Is Time-to-Power

AI’s Next Bottleneck Is Not Computing — It Is Time-to-Power Why the next generation of AI data centres may need to be designed together with their energy infrastructure Ahilan Raman | Managing Director, Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) The global AI race is usually discussed in terms of GPUs, models, semiconductor supply and computing capacity. But another constraint is rapidly becoming just as important: Where will the megawatts come from — and how quickly can they be delivered? An AI data centre can increasingly be constructed using repeatable, modular infrastructure. The electricity network supplying it operates on a very different development timescale. That mismatch is beginning to reshape data-centre engineering. The power system is becoming part of the data centre Australia provides a particularly interesting example. AEMO reported that, by the end of the March 2026 quarter, 11 large data-centre projects above 5 MW, representing 5.4 GW of maximum demand, were already progressing through the National Electricity Market transmission-connection process. Around 40% of that capacity was in Victoria. AEMO said current experience suggested approximately a two-year application-to-energisation timeframe, although individual projects vary. The policy direction is also changing. In August, the Australian Energy Market Commission recommended that data centres should bring new clean, firm capacity, operate flexibly and make efficient use of the network. It specifically identified co-location with generation as one way of reducing network pressure. This points toward an important change in thinking. Instead of treating electricity as a utility connection that is considered after the data centre has been designed, perhaps the data centre and its energy system increasingly need to be engineered as one infrastructure project. Why 20 MW is an interesting scale Not every AI facility needs to begin as a 500 MW or 1 GW hyperscale campus. There is growing evidence for modular deployment at much smaller increments. Australian developer QORINAI describes a delivered modular project comprising eight transportable 2.5 MW modules, with capacity contracted in stages from 1.9 MW to 20 MW over five months. Its current development model describes repeatable campus blocks of approximately 10–50 MW, with dedicated substations, cooling plants and data halls. That is significant. A 20 MW facility is large enough to support substantial AI computing infrastructure, but still small enough to consider a dedicated energy island and staged deployment. And there is no reason that the modularity of the computing infrastructure must correspond exactly with the modularity of the power plant. A data centre might comprise several independently deployable computing blocks while a multiple-engine power island feeds a common electrical bus. Modularity should occur where it makes engineering and commercial sense — not because every subsystem must have the same module size. AI is also changing cooling Increasing rack densities are making the old distinction between electrical infrastructure and cooling infrastructure less useful. QORINAI, for example, is designing Australian AI infrastructure around direct-to-chip liquid cooling and cites design points as high as 250 kW per rack. As rack density rises, cooling becomes an increasingly important part of the total energy balance. That raises another engineering question: Why design power generation and cooling independently if the power plant is simultaneously producing useful thermal energy? A conventional assessment may look primarily at electrical efficiency. A trigeneration assessment asks a broader question: What useful outputs can we obtain from every unit of primary energy entering the system? Electricity is one output. Recoverable heat is another. Cooling produced from otherwise recoverable thermal energy can become a third. For AI infrastructure, that distinction matters. Behind-the-meter power is moving into the mainstream The trend is already visible internationally. Reuters reported in late September that demand for smaller gas turbines is rising as data-centre developers pursue rapid behind-the-meter generation to avoid grid-connection delays and long lead times for large turbines. Enverus projects 29.6 GW of behind-the-meter gas generation additions by 2030, with data centres accounting for 88% of that capacity. A few days later, Enerflex announced a contract to engineer and assemble 450 MW of behind-the-meter natural-gas generation for a North American data-centre developer. The attraction is straightforward. Instead of asking: “When will the grid be ready for my data centre?” the developer can begin asking: “Can I bring firm power to the data centre?” But there is an important problem. Simply moving conventional fossil generation behind the meter solves the time-to-power problem without necessarily solving the carbon problem. That is where CEWT is exploring a different architecture. Can the carbon itself be recycled? At Clean Energy and Water Technologies, we are developing a 20 MW grid-independent Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) Trigeneration concept for data-centre applications in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. The principle is different from simply installing gas engines beside a data centre. Methane provides firm power. The resulting carbon dioxide is captured. Instead of treating that CO₂ purely as waste for disposal, CRT treats carbon as a circulating process material. Captured CO₂ is combined with hydrogen-rich syngas and renewable hydrogen and converted back to methane through methanation. The methane returns to power generation. The carbon therefore circulates through: Methane → Power → CO₂ → Methanation → Methane Renewable hydrogen supplies new energy into that carbon cycle. The objective is not to claim that carbon disappears. Quite the opposite. Every molecule of carbon must have a destination. That requires a rigorous carbon ledger covering methane, CO, CO₂, recycle, inventory, purge, vents and losses independently of the plant’s energy balance. Trigeneration changes the system boundary Our current 20 MW concept combines a multi-engine firm-power island with carbon recovery, H₂-rich syngas, renewable hydrogen and methanation. But electricity is only part of the architecture. Gas-engine thermal energy and the exothermic heat released during methanation represent potentially useful energy streams. For a data centre, that heat can potentially support absorption cooling or other thermal services alongside conventional high-density liquid-cooling infrastructure. The appropriate measure therefore becomes broader than generator electrical efficiency alone. It becomes: How much useful computing-supporting infrastructure can we obtain from each MW of primary energy? That is a different optimisation problem. Why Latrobe Valley matters There is another reason we believe Latrobe Valley deserves attention. The region is already attracting major data-centre interest. Keppel has secured rights over a 123-hectare site near Hazelwood for a proposed data-centre campus with potential access to 720 MW of gross power. The Victorian Government identifies existing energy infrastructure, industrial land and access to sustainable raw water among the site’s advantages. Latrobe City Council’s September update says the Hazelwood North project has not yet lodged its planning approval and that community consultation is expected later in 2026. That is important context. It suggests Latrobe Valley is not merely a former power-generation region searching for a new purpose. It could become part of Australia’s next generation of energy-intensive digital infrastructure. A smaller 20 MW project can play a different role from a 720 MW hyperscale campus. It can demonstrate an alternative architecture. From grid connection to energy platform For decades, the conventional development sequence has effectively been: Land → Grid Connection → Data Centre. The emerging model could increasingly become: Land → Firm Energy Platform → Data Centre → Grid Integration when appropriate. That does not mean abandoning the electricity grid. Nor does it mean every data centre should generate all of its own power. It means recognising that time-to-power has become a fundamental project-design variable. And once power generation moves closer to the computing load, engineers have an opportunity to reconsider the whole system: electricity, cooling, water, carbon, hydrogen, storage and waste heat. For CEWT, the engineering philosophy remains straightforward: Every MW must have a source and destination. Every molecule must have a source and destination. Every litre of water must have a pathway. The AI infrastructure race may therefore not ultimately be won only by whoever has the most advanced GPUs. It may also be won by those who can provide those GPUs with dependable megawatts, cooling and supporting infrastructure at the speed at which AI capacity needs to be deployed. Time-to-power is becoming a design parameter. And that may fundamentally change how we design the next generation of data centres. Sources • AEMO, “Digital demand surge”, 2026. • Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), electricity/data-centre policy developments, 2026. • QORINAI, Australian AI data-centre and modular infrastructure information. • Reuters, reporting on behind-the-meter gas generation for data centres, September 2026. • Enerflex, behind-the-meter generation project announcement, 2026. • ABC News, reporting on Keppel’s proposed Latrobe Valley/Hazelwood data-centre development, January 2026. • Latrobe City Council, Proposed Developments in Our Region, September 2026.