Battery companies hoping to get a foothold in Australia’s rapidly growing storage market were the main exhibitors at the Smart Energy Conference held in Sydney last week, outnumbering solar companies almost two-to-one. Pv magazine Australia looked at what is on offer and who the new hopefuls in the battery space are.

While Australia’s home battery market seems to have attracted most of the interest from newcomers, there has been some significant new developments in the commercial and utility-scale space. Pv magazine Australia examined the new products and companies in the commercial and utility battery storage space on display at the Smart Energy Conference.

Construction has been completed on what is, for now, New South Wales’ largest battery system. The 150 MW / 300 MWh Riverina and Darlington Point energy storage systems are made up of three co-located units and owned by private equity fund manager Federation Asset Management and Edify Energy.

The Albanese Labor government has delivered its 2023 – 2024 budget, placing energy front and centre. The budget takes the government’s total spend on making Australia a renewable superpower to $40 billion (USD 27 billion). While many in the industry have applauded the budget, there are some glaring contradictions.

Australia recently hit it first gigawatt of big battery storage, with another 40 GW in the projected pipeline. During the Smart Energy Conference, Marija Petkovic, founder and managing director of Energy Synapse, looked at what we’ve learned so far.

Chinese inverter and storage company Sungrow and Australian developer Green Gold Energy have signed an agreement to collaborate on “at least” 500 MWh of battery storage projects within the next three years – most to all of which will be DC-coupled. Relatively new to Australia’s grid-connected battery landscape, DC-coupled batteries will soon be able to trade on lucrative FCAS markets thanks to imminent rule changes, providing a firmer foothold for the technology in Australia.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown that while renewable generation in Australia has increased significantly year on year, the country’s progress towards net zero is stymied by the failure to reduce consumption.

Fortescue Future Industries has unveiled its in-house PEM electrolyser prototype just months after US company Plug Power pulled the plug on its FFI partnership.

Western Australian startup International Graphite says its proposed graphite processing plant in Collie has been found to have “outstanding” economics by its new scoping study. Graphite is a vital element in lithium-ion batteries and International Graphite is one of a handful of Australian companies working to move its processing onto Australian shores.

Greek renewables developer Mytilineos has acquired a 15% stake in the Rosedale Green Hydrogen project, which aims to build a 800 MW solar farm next to a 560 MW hydrogen production plant at roughly the midpoint between Melbourne and Sydney on a major trucking corridor.