A giant battery capable of powering 20,000 homes for an hour during a blackout is finally set to be built in Warrenheip, more than six months behind schedule.
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All up $50 million from the state government and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency [ARENA] is being spent to create a 30-megawatt, 30-megawatt-hour battery at the Ballarat Terminal Station in Warrenheip, as well as a 25-megawatt, 50-megawatt-hour Tesla battery to be integrated with the Gannawarra Solar Farm near Kerang.
The state government first announced its $25 million spend in March last year, stating two batteries would be up and running in western Victoria no later than January 2018.
Speaking in relation to the delay, Ms D’Ambrosio said “we are not in the business of rushing big complex projects, we’re interested in getting them right”.
“We would have liked (projects deployed earlier) and that’s why we sought expressions of interest from the market for that possibility and the market responded to the point where the complexity of these projects...meant that it was not possible,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
“We originally talked about two 20-megawatt batteries and we’ve actually achieved more than that.”
A consortium led by Spotless Sustainability Services will deliver the Warrenheip lithium-ion battery, which will be located in the south-west corner of the substation.
The storage facility will be housed in nine purpose-built enclosures of similar size to a standard shipping container.
International energy infrastructure builder Fluence will supply the battery, which will be owned by AusNet Services.
Construction has already begun at both sites, with the batteries expected to be up and running ahead of next summer’s peak demand period.
A planning application granted in November 2017 stated the Warrenheip project had to be completed by the end of 2018 unless an extension was granted.
Both projects will be operated by Energy Australia after the retailer signed a $50 million deal to charge and dispatch the energy into the national grid.
On top of delivering crucial power supply during periods of peak demand, the Warrenheip infrastructure will also frequency control which helps to ensure stability of power output.
The battery will be able to intervene within milliseconds to provide and stabilise energy going to Ballarat homes. Importantly, the storage site will be able to increase the amount of energy supplied by nearby wind and solar generation at a reduced cost.
ARENA chief executive Ivor Frichknecht said the new investments placed Australia as a world leader in battery storage.
“Battery storage will play a crucial role in the future energy mix, alongside other forms of storage and in conjunction with variable renewables and demand management.”
