Venture capital fund Macquarie Group’s battery storage platform Eku Energy said pre-construction activities have begun for the $80 million (USD 53.7 million) Rangebank battery energy storage system being built at Cranbourne in southeast Melbourne.
A collaboration between Eku, international energy major Shell and minority equity partner Perfection Private, the Rangebank Battery will be built, serviced, and maintained by Fluence and will feature the United States-headquartered firm’s modular Gridstack battery system.
Eku said the Rangebank Battery, which will connect to the transmission network at the Cranbourne Terminal Station, will be completed in late 2024, increasing Victoria’s renewable energy hosting capacity and providing essential system services.
Daniel Burrows, head of Asia Pacific and chief investment officer at Eku, said when fully operational the Rangebank Battery will have enough storage capacity to power 80,000 homes for an hour during peak periods.
Image: Shell Energy
Victoria Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the project will play a key role in helping the state achieve its energy storage and renewable energy targets.
“Grid-scale big batteries like this one are crucial in helping Victoria achieve our energy storage targets of at least 2.6 GW of capacity by 2030 and at least 6.3 GW by 2035 to ensure we can deliver the benefits of cheaper, renewable energy across the state,” she said.
The Rangebank Battery is part of a 1 GWh portfolio of energy storage projects Eku has is delivery in Australia. The portfolio also includes the recently commissioned 150 MW/150 MWh battery built at the site of the retired Hazelwood power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, and the 250 MW/500 MWh Big Canberra Battery being developed at Williamsdale in the Australian Capital Territory.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.