Energy Storage

Venture capital fund Macquarie Group’s new battery storage platform Eku Energy has been tapped by the Australian Capital Territory government to deliver the next stage of the Big Canberra Battery ‘ecosystem’ which will support the ongoing rollout of large-scale renewables and rooftop solar.

South Australian technology company EntX has been granted a license to explore salt deposits along the western side of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia for the purpose of hydrogen storage.

Canadian-headquartered clean energy firm Amp Energy has secured the rights to develop a green hydrogen project with up to 5 GW of electrolyser capacity on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Amp has signed an agreement with iron ore miner Iron Road which owns the coastal site, including the Cape Hardy Port Precinct.

Australian renewable developer GMR Energy, formerly Maoneng, has started work on its 240 MW / 480 MWh battery project on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The company has entered into an early works agreement with network AusNet, and is aiming to complete the $330 million (USD 220 million) by 2024, two years after the company had originally forecast.

Stanford University researchers have created a model to assess how much compressed air storage capacity might be needed for the deep decarbonisation of power systems, while compensating for the variability of wind and solar-based power systems. They applied the model to California’s energy system and found that compressed air could be very competitive on a dollars-per-kilowatt-hour basis.

A South Australian racecourse has now become a fully operational DC-coupled solar and battery farm. The Berri Energy Project, owned by retailer Flow Power, is part of the company’s strategy to build up to 50 MW of mid-scale (sub 5 MW) projects to supplement its offtake portfolio, Flow Power COO Byron Serjeanston told pv magazine Australia.

Sun Cable’s troubled $30-plus billion (USD 20 billion) mega solar and storage project has received a welcome boost with resources company Tivan announcing it has penned a deal with the developer for the potential offtake of up to 300 MW of renewable electricity to support a planned critical minerals processing facility in the Northern Territory.

Before beginning BESS design, it’s important to understand auxiliary power design, site layout, cable sizing, grounding system and site communications design.

San Miguel, which is now behind on its original plan to deliver a 1 GW/1 GWh fleet of battery energy storage systems (BESS) by the end of 2022, continues to roll out big batteries across 32 sites in the Philippines, in order to integrate up to 5 GW of renewables into the island nation’s grid.

Virtual Power Plants, or VPPs, are relatively mature in Australia due to the country’s high penetration of, and familiarity with, distributed energy resources. But claims of VPP success and participation may be overblown, with a considerable gaps between the numbers some platforms are claiming and the realms of possibility.