Utility Scale Storage

The suggestion of additional investments beyond the $1.6 billion follows reports of battery cell shortages as Tesla’s Model 3 picks up production. It is unknown what impacts this will have on Tesla’s stationary storage business.

The City of Sydney has installed the first large scale battery storage system to be located within the Sydney metropolitan are. Transgrid and the City collaborated on the project, which sees 500 kWh of batteries coupled with around 450 kWp of rooftop PV.

Puerto Rico is requesting ten 20 MW / 20 MWh batteries to be deployed strategically in the country’s power grid. The RFQ notes that sites should be upgradable to 40 MW / 160 MWh.

A hugely-ambitious plan to develop a 200 MW PV array and 120 MWh battery system in South Australia has received development approval. The project developer, which is hosted by the University of Adelaide’s ThincLab accelerator, reports that the $450 million project is privately financed with a 60/40 merchant/PPA structure – a significant milestone for the market segment.

Australia’s first large-scale project to use pumped hydro to store solar generated power, the Kidston facility in north Queensland, has landed more than half a billion dollars in concessional finance from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Data published by the United States Geological Survey show that, in 2017, lithium production in Australia reached 18,700 tons, compared to 14,100 tons in Chile. The market share of Chile has declined from 37.6% in 2016 to 32.8% in 2017; and risen Australia, from 36.8% to 43.5% in the same period.

On the back of a 20 year power-purchase agreement with Total Eren, the global confectionary giant has taken 100% renewable energy pledge for its six Australian factories.

With an unprecedented rollout of rooftop solar reaching 1.1 GW and around 700 MW of large-scale renewable energy projects completed and connected to the grid, last year was an important turning point for Australia’s clean energy industry, shows the Clean Energy Council in its latest report. However, seven times bigger capacity of utility-scale projects with financial support or under construction at the year’s end is poised to eclipse 2017.

The 174 MW solar farm coupled with a 100 MWh energy storage facility near Wellington has received a green light from the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment. The project proposal came from First Solar.

Australia’s energy utility Snowy Hydro has invited potential energy suppliers to submit their proposals with the aim to contract up to 400 MW of wind and 400 MW of solar generation.