Utility Scale Storage

While little action is seen on the federal level, energy storage is increasingly coming to the fore as part of state and territory energy policies. With a rising number of residential battery subsidy schemes taking shape in Australia, funding appears to be slowly moving away from solar to energy storage. Such initiatives are poised to not only reshape the battery storage market, but also have a major impact on the grid, making it more reliable, responsive, and flexible.

A new report analyzing the world’s largest lithium-ion battery’s performance in the first year of operation shows the Hornsdale Power Reserve has delivered on high expectations of its performance and market impact. It has helped stabilize the grid, avoid outages and reduce system costs, as well as triggered a surge in uptake of similar fast response systems across Australia.

The South Australian state government has launched a $50 million fund to support construction of new energy storage projects, seeking to address intermittency in the state electricity system and make electricity more affordable and reliable. There will be one round of applications, with a closing date of Thursday, 7 February 2019.

The 25 MW / 50 MWh Tesla battery collocated with the 60 MW Gannawarra Solar Farm has been officially commissioned, as the second of the two grid-scale batteries that will provide support to the Victorian grid by the start of this summer. The Gannawarra project is Australia’s largest integrated solar and battery facility.

Australian developers Energy Estate and MirusWind have proposed a massive renewable energy hub in New South Wales. The project will combine wind and solar energy generation with pumped hydro storage and other storage options to provide up to 4 GW of new clean generation.

Hydrogen produced by electrolysers powered by solar and wind in Australia could replace 3% of the world’s gas consumption. The IEA made the observation today in its ‘flagship’ annual publication, noting that by 2040 costs of renewable hydrogen in northern Australia would likely be competitive with hydrogen produced from natural gas.

Only weeks after Victoria’s first big battery was unveiled in Ballarat, the retrofitted 25MW/50MWh Tesla powerpack battery at the Gannawarra Solar Farm was commissioned ahead of schedule, confirms Germany’s Wirsol Energy. The developer’s major solar projects in Victoria have reached milestones: the 60 MW Ganawarra Solar Farm has successfully passed all commissioning tests, and the 110 MW Wemen Solar Farm has been connected to the grid.

Alice Springs, the solar capital of Australia, has welcomed its first big battery. The 5 MW energy storage system is projected to double the share of solar in the local grid, which can currently supply up to 40% of the Alice Springs’ power needs.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance has significantly increased its forecast for global deployment of behind-the-meter and grid-scale batteries from now to 2040. The research company sees Australia among nine markets that will be driving this trend, as the economic case for batteries becomes unstoppable.

Australia’s first community battery trial went live on Monday, after the 52 available spots had been snapped up by Mandurah households – three months ahead of schedule. The trial involves a bulk Tesla battery integrated into existing grid and owned and operated by Western Power and Synergy.