Atmos Renewables and Nomad Energy have lodged a development application for a 100 MW, four-hour battery to be built near Merredin in Western Australia’s central Wheatbelt region.
The proposed Merredin battery energy storage system is to be developed on a four-hectare site about 7.5 kilometres southwest of the town, about 260 kilometres east of Perth.
The site is adjacent to the 100 MW Merredin Solar Farm, which was developed by Nomad and is now owned by Singapore-headquartered SUN Energy, and will be connected to the South West Interconnected System (SWIS) at the adjacent Merredin terminal.
The developers said the proximity to Western Power’s Merredin terminal substation was a key consideration when the site was selected and will result in relatively minor works being required to connect the proposed facility to the grid.
Fremantle-based Nomad said the Shire of Merredin has backed the project, declaring it is consistent with council’s ambition to be a centre for renewable energy systems.
A report that accompanies the development application lauds the Merredin shire as the renewable energy centre for the Wheatbelt and Western Australia, having pioneered wind turbines and solar farms in the state.
“The next iteration is in the storage and redistribution of this energy via battery energy storage systems,” the report reads.
Nomad said the project, once approved and constructed will boost SWIS grid reliability in the Wheatbelt and Goldfields regions.
The final investment decision on the $220 million Merredin battery energy storage project is expected in the second half of this year.
The project is the first to be rolled out as part of Nomad’s collaboration with Sydney-based Atmos Renewables, the clean energy arm of investment manager Igneo Infrastructure Partners.
The parties last year announced they would work together to deliver more than 1 GW of utility-scale renewable projects before the end of the decade.
Atmos owns and operates 15 large-scale plants, generating 2.5 TWh of electricity across all regions of the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Atmos currently holds generation assets with a combined capacity in excess of 1.7 GW while Nomad has developed more than 500 MW of renewable energy projects globally and entered the partnership with more than 1 GW of utility-scale of wind, solar and storage projects in the development pipeline.
The parties said they intend to jointly develop, construct, own and operate the assets they develop in collaboration.
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