Energy Storage

The Queensland government’s reverse auction got a step closer with the announcement of 10 shortlisted renewable energy proponents as it seeks to bring up another 400 MW of solar and wind energy and battery storage into the market.

With the approval for a 176 MW solar farm and 66 MW battery storage facility near Murray Bridge, South Australia’s utility-scale wind and solar pipeline has reached some 10 GW.

As it continues to drive renewables and energy storage, the South Australian government has given its tick of approval for the 280 MW Bungama Solar Farm coupled with a 140MW/560MWh battery storage facility proposed by EPS Energy.

The Northern Territory has given major project status to an ambitious plan to develop a 10 GW solar farm coupled with a 20-30 GWh storage facility near Tennant Creek and export solar power harvested in the Australian desert to Singapore via subsea cables.

United Kingdom-based Highview Power has contracted with U.S. energy developer Tenaska to pursue gigawatt-hour scale cryogenic energy projects in the U.S. Highview reports a storage cost of $140/MWh at industrial scale; the firm currently operates a 5 MW pilot facility in England.

Canadian gas giant ATCO has unveiled its Clean Energy Hub in Jandakot which will explore the potential of hydrogen for home use in gas appliances. On the same day, the Western Australian government has launched a renewable hydrogen strategy and announced the creation of a $10 million green hydrogen fund.

The South Australian government has given its tick of approval for the development of a 5 MW/10 MWh compressed air energy storage facility, which will store excess solar and wind power at a closed underground mine.

A report published by New Zealand’s state-owned transmission grid operator Transpower finds the widespread uptake of distributed battery storage could play an important role in supporting the power system as rooftop PV and electric vehicles are increasingly adopted.

An international research collaboration led by Curtin University is set to help decarbonise mining and other off-grid industry with concentrating solar power that delivers clean energy night and day.

New research released this week by The Australia Institute shows that ‘time of use pricing’ (ToU) facilitated by smart meters is likely to drive up household energy costs by $429 a year on top of already high prices. Analysis of national electricity market data suggests that demand for electricity in Australia is very inelastic, which makes ToU more likely to increase the profits of electricity companies than to assist consumers. Households with solar PV and batteries, however, are best suited to cope with this type of pricing.