NSW utility-scale battery pipeline takes shape under government funding program

The funding streams announced as part of the $75 million NSW Emerging Energy Program, which encourages private sector investment in cutting edge large-scale electricity and storage projects, have unveiled a number of project proposals spread across seven locations, including Broken Hill, Yass and Armidale. Looking to ensure the state’s energy security and orderly energy transition, the NSW government is looking at 31 dispatchable electricity projects, including 14 big batteries.

As announced on Monday, some 2,150 MW of energy storage projects have been awarded a total of $7.1 million for pre-investment studies. Those on-demand electricity projects have the potential to leverage almost $2 billion in private investment.

Among the projects receiving grants of up to $500,000 for feasibility studies, the number of pumped hydro projects and big batteries is equal, with the former far exceeding in terms of capacity. The biggest among the big batteries is Renew Estate’s 250 MW facility at the Buronga Energy Park near Mildura, which is planned to be collocated with a solar farm.

On the list of capital projects which have been shortlisted for funding and progressed to the full application stage, big batteries are overwhelmingly dominant. A total of 21 projects were shortlisted for capital funding across six technologies, including pumped hydro, gas, biogas, solar thermal, virtual power plants and batteries, accounting for more than 700 MW of on-demand electricity capacity. Ten of those projects are big batteries with the accumulative capacity in excess of 310 MW.

With NSW lagging behind other states in the uptake of big batteries, some of the projects in the table below could become the first utility-scale batteries on the state grid. For instance, one of the shortlisted projects is a 50 MW battery at AGL’s 53 MW Broken Hill Solar Farm, which was recently exposed to drastic curtailment amid voltage fluctuations in the NSW 220 kV network.

Other utility-scale batteries are proposed to be collocated with existing wind or solar farms, including Maoeng’s 50 MW solar battery, Edify Energy’s 25 MW Darlington solar battery and CWP Renewables’ 30 MW Sapphire wind battery, which will be part of a renewable energy hub with an approved solar component. Further projects include network operator Transgrid’s 50 MW battery, RES Australia’s 40 MW battery and a number of smaller systems of 10-20 MW. 

The successful recipients of the capital grants will be announced in the first half of 2020.