Energy Storage

Australian producers of critical minerals needed for electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries have received Australian government grants to a combined $13 million to help build diversified supply chains with the support of partners in the USA, Japan and Republic of Korea.

Renewables investment firm Octopus Australia has received planning approval from a local government body for its 500 MW / 1 GWh Blackstone battery energy storage system located 40 km southwest of Brisbane.

The Queensland government has launched Australia’s first battery supply chain database to help local companies identify business and supply chain opportunities and to support domestic production and connect with potential investors.

In its latest quarterly press release, traditionally focused on vehicle production, Tesla revealed a significant increase in energy storage deployment, officially reporting revenue for 9.4 GWh of deployed storage products.

The ball is rolling on the Australian government’s pending Capacity Investment Scheme Tender 2 focussing on the Western Australian Wholesale Electricity Market and which seeks an indicative target of 500 MW of four-hour equivalent dispatchable capacity, or 2,000 MWh.

Australian flow battery specialist Redflow has struck a partnership with Queensland state-owned generation company Stanwell to work together on the development of a non-lithium long-duration battery energy storage solution for use in a 400 MWh project.

The Australian government has beefed up its commitment to community batteries to support the integration of renewable energy in the grid with more than 420 battery energy storage systems to be installed in neighbourhoods across the country as part of its Community Batteries for Household Solar program.

Australian EPC contractor ACLE Services has broken ground on a 5 MW / 10 MWh battery energy storage project in northern Victoria that is the first in a planned pipeline of 27 batteries that will be rolled out across regional Australia delivering a combined capacity of 270 MWh.

New South Wales power grid owner Transgrid is looking at rolling out up to 14 synchronous condensers and 4.8 GW of batteries with ‘grid forming’ capability to protect and strengthen the security and stability of the electricity grid as coal-fired power plants retire and more renewables come online.

Plans to build a 5 GW / 120 GWh pumped hydro energy storage system in Queensland’s Pioneer Valley have received a positive boost with geotechnical investigations revealing the site is ideally suited for dam and tunnel construction.