Specifics on the Energy Vault and Enervest battery project remain scant with only the 1 GWh battery capacity and no further details about the Stoney Creek site nor timelines yet provided.
Nonetheless, the $350 million deal is a major development for company Energy Vault, which has diversified its technology offering and pivoted its strategy significantly in the last few years. Expanding into the Australia’s battery market is a major part of Energy’s Vault’s new growth strategy, with the new Enervest deal sitting alongside an agreement with ACEN Australia to build two new batteries totalling 400 MWh at the New England Solar Farm in NSW, announced in May.
Its deal with Melbourne-based Enervest Group was signed on Monday, with the two companies saying they are now “finalising the development and grid application approvals” to bring the 1 GWh Stoney Creek battery to a full financial investment decision (FID).
Under the agreement, Energy Vault will serve as the turn-key engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning partner. It will also act as system integrator and provide longterm services, software and maintenance support over the life of the project.
The Stoney Creek project will use Energy Vault’s lithium-based B-Vault™ technology, as well as the company’s proprietary X-Vault integration platform and Vault-OS Energy Management System to control, manage and optimise the battery operations, it says.
Energy Vault’s strategy pivot
Energy Vault is perhaps best known for its gravity energy storage systems, shaped like towers. The company’s novel gravity storage technology generated significant interest in its early days, with its stocks spiking shortly after it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in early 2022.
Image: Energy Vault
However, by June 2022 its share price plummeted and in September of this year the company reportedly received a written notice from the NYSE because the average price of its common stock had fallen below the USD 1.00 threshold required for continued listing.
Against this backdrop, Energy Vault has undergone a major strategy pivot, diversifying into lithium batteries and green hydrogen technologies. In October it updated its growth strategy, in which it cited project financing for a utility-scale green hydrogen long-duration energy storage (LDES) facility in California, known as the Calistoga Resiliency Center, alongside its aforementioned Australian battery deal with ACEN as landmarks.
As a result, Energy Vault’s stocks have been trading higher throughout October.
The company says its lithium-based B-Vault battery portfolio now consists of more than 2 GWh in total projects either deployed or currently in development.
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