Under a deal involving AGL Energy and Vena Energy Australia one of Australia’s biggest batteries will be built in Queensland, which will play a crucial role in improving grid stability and support the continued shift to renewable energy in the state.
Backers say the battery will strengthen the grid’s ability to shift from coal to renewable power generation by smoothing out the intermittent nature of wind and solar power.
The giant new 100-megawatt (MW) grid-scale battery at Wandoan, costing $120 million, will be built by independent power supplier Vena Energy in 18 months, the Queensland state government said in a statement.
The lithium-ion battery will be similar in size to Australia’s biggest battery, the Tesla “Big Battery”, built by US tech billionaire Elon Musk’s company in remote South Australia in 2017.
The new battery in Queensland will have capacity to store 150 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power 57,000 homes for 1.5 hours.
Although the grid-scale battery market is in its infancy, batteries are considered to be crucial in the nation’s move away from heavy-emitting coal-fired power stations, due to their capacity to store electricity generated from renewable sources and dispense it at a later time when conditions for renewable energy are unfavourable.
“The climate-change deniers criticise renewable energy for not being available when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow,” Queensland state Labor government Energy Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said.
Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said increasing energy storage capacity in the grid was the next phase in the modernisation of Australia’s energy network.
“Queensland continues to be a major hub for clean energy projects within Australia with more than $6 billion invested in renewable projects since 2017,” Mr Thornton said.
“It has created more than 5900 jobs in clean energy production across the state.”
The battery will be connected to Vena Energy’s 1000 megawatt Wandoan South solar project due to open in 2021.
Dr Lynham said the Queensland state-owned energy distributor Powerlink would help connect the battery to the grid once it was completed.
“Queensland is our nation’s renewable energy powerhouse,” he said.
AGL, the nation’s largest energy generator, owns coal-fired power plants around Australia, but has been positioning itself as a market leader in battery technology.
Last year, it signed a 15-year deal with renewable energy firm Maoneng Group to build four large-scale batteries in New South Wales in time for the looming shutdown of its Liddell coal-fired generator in 2023.
“We are staring at the dawn of a new age of energy: the dawn of the battery age,” AGL chief executive Brett Redman said.
“As the industry continues to transition from baseload thermal generation to renewables, batteries will be pivotal to providing firming capacity when the sun isn’t shining, when the wind isn’t blowing and the market needs the capacity.”
Renewable energy accounts for an ever-rising share of Australia’s power mix, supplying 20 per cent of demand.
However, coal power remains dominant in Australia, supplying 60 per cent of demand.
Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister in Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government, Angus Taylor, said the government supported all new projects in the National Electricity Market (NEM), but said projects must provide a “like-for-like” role in the market.
“Our focus is on projects that ensure reliability and lower wholesale prices,” he said.
AGL and Vena Energy Australia on Wednesday announced they had struck a 15-year agreement to deliver and operate the new battery.
As the user of the battery, AGL would have full operational dispatch rights, and Vena Energy, as the owner of the battery, would build and maintain the asset, the companies said.
Queensland has a significant surplus of energy when solar plants are generating power, making the state ideal for energy-storage technology such as batteries, Dr Lynham said.
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