Utility Scale Storage

FRV Australia has reached financial close on its Walla Walla Solar Farm thanks to a PPA with Microsoft. The company is also progressing its second big battery in Australia, the 250 MW / 500 MWh Gnarwarre battery in Victoria, after winning support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

The 5 MW Woods Point Solar and Storage Farm in South Australia is open – it is one of three identical solar storage projects being commissioned by SEI and Yes Group in December, and part of a much larger mid-scale play.

The first large-scale battery to be connected to the grid in New South Wales has officially reached full production, providing fast frequency response and synthetic inertia services to the transmission network as the state looks to fill the soon-to-be-revealed gap created by retiring coal-fired generators.

Danish renewable energy developer European Energy has acquired a majority stake in a 3.6 GW integrated solar and battery energy storage facility and green hydrogen production plant being developed near Gladstone on the central Queensland coast.

The Australian government has announced a $176 million (USD 117.5 million) funding injection which it expects will unleash almost $3 billion of investment in advanced battery technology, delivering a step change in grid-forming capability across the National Electricity Market.

Chinese-Canadian PV manufacturing heavyweight Canadian Solar said it will begin mass production of 690 W TOPCon products in the first quarter of 2023. The modules will feature a cell efficiency of 25.0% and a bifaciality factor of more than 85%.

A new player has entered the Australian renewable energy sector with New Zealand-based infrastructure investor Infratil confirming that its new majority-owned clean energy platform Mint Renewables will look at wind, solar and energy storage opportunities with an initial investment of $300 million (USD 203 million).

Moving with Australia’s Zeitgeist, Stuart Parry, managing director of Energy Storage Industries, is working to bring battery manufacturing onto Australian shores – and his approach is, if not novel, certainly well advanced. “It’s about being smart in how we do it,” Parry tells pv magazine Australia.

Chinese battery maker Hithium and Australian solar developer Sun Valley HK Group have agreed to work together on eight solar farms either under construction or in planning in Australia, presumably deploying Hithium batteries at the sites.

Another of the coordinated clean energy zones planned for New South Wales is a step closer to being developed with the state government announcing the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone, which has already attracted expressions of interest for almost 40 GW of generation, has been formally declared.