Grids & Integration

The CSIRO will invest $50 million in four new programs to drive critical breakthroughs in electric vehicle batteries and creating storage solution which could “mimic pumped hydro.”

In September 2021, not long after a fire at the Victorian Big Battery made international headlines, Neoen’s original “Big Battery” – the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia – was sued by the Australian Energy Regulator for failing to provide all of the frequency control ancillary services it had agreed to offer. The case is now before Australia’s Federal Court, where the judgement could set an important precedent for network operations in Australia, as well as the transition to large-scale batteries.

Transgrid and the Commonwealth Government have come to a $75 million underwriting agreement for the construction of the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West, a key piece of network infrastructure in the Australian Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan for the increased integration of renewables and maintaining reliability amidst the retirement of coal-fired power.

Another of the five community-sized Tesla batteries the Queensland government promised to install at substations across the state is on the verge of energisation in Bundaberg.

The University of Sydney, Australia’s oldest, has signed a contract with Snowy Hydro and its subsidiary Red Energy to match “100%” of its energy consumption with renewables, in particular solar.

Homeowners who participate in a new Enphase pilot project will connect their home batteries to the US grid, sharing energy through Green Mountain Power’s distribution system in exchange for financial incentives.

The New South Wales Government has outlined plans for another coordinated renewable energy zone which will deliver at least 2.5GW of new network capacity as the state’s transitions from fossil fuels towards renewable power accelerates.

AGL has committed to another big battery project as it seeks to add at least 850MW of new large-scale energy storage to its portfolio by 2024, confirming it will begin construction of a 50MW/50MWh battery at Broken Hill which will improve energy security in regional New South Wales.

The extensive power outages experienced in Western Australia last Christmas were a result of extreme weather rather than human failure, an independent review has found. The report’s author, AEMC’s Michelle Shepherd, notes such instances will likely become increasingly frequent with climate change.

Following the early success of its solar integrated Gannawarra Energy Storage System, Edify Energy has again opted for Tesla Megapack as its preferred battery energy storage system for its combination of storage projects totalling 150MW/300MWh in the Riverina region of New South Wales.