30 MW Battery Storage Project Starts In Victoria

Victoria has unveiled the first of two large scale battery energy storage projects under the Australian state government’s Energy Storage Initiative, that supports and assists energy storage integration in the Victorian electrical system.

In March 2018, the Victorian government had announced it will build two-large scale batteries with AU$25 million ($17.7 million) investment and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) putting in equal amount, under its Energy Storage Initiative. These were to be strategically located to provide backup power and grid stabilization functions.

Now, it says one of these batteries is ready to start rolling. The 30 MW/30 MWh Ballarat Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at Ballarat Terminal Station in Warrenheip is capable of supplying power to over 20,000 homes for an hour of critical peak demand before being recharged, the state government said.

It added that milliseconds is all it takes to respond to changing grid needs and the system will operate 24 hours a day to support demand. The project is built by a consortium led by Spotless Sustainability Services.

For this project, Fluence is supplying battery systems. It will be owned by AusNet Service and operated by Energy Australia.

Another project is Tesla’s 25 MW/50 MWh battery integrated with the Gannawarra Solar Farm, south-west of Kerang, being built by Edify Energy. It uses Tesla Powerpack system, jointly owned by Edify Energy and Wirsol Energy, and operated by EnergyAustralia.

Commercial operation date for both these projects was announced to be Summer 2018-19. In Australia it means time between December 2018 and February 2019.

More details about both these projects are available on the state government’s website.

The projects follow South Australian government’s successful experiment with installing Tesla’s 129 MWh battery storage system at the 100 MW Hornsdale Wind Power Plant by Neoen in 2017.