In a move that will certainly improve the country’s energy security Australia’s largest integrated battery and solar farm has been officially opened in the north of the southern state of Victoria.
The 50-megawatt battery system just outside of the rural town of Kerang stores 100 per cent renewable energy and feeds directly into the state’s electricity grid.
It is United States supplier Tesla’s second biggest battery in Australia, after its 100-megawatt lithium ion battery in South Australia, with the capacity to power 16,000 homes.
The Energy Minister in Victoria’s state Labor government, Lily D’Ambrosio, said it was a huge step towards the government’s renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030.
“It’s producing clean, renewable energy from a really important natural resource that exists in north-western Victoria, and that is the sun,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
Last year the Victorian Labor government and the conservative Liberal-National federal government each gave $25 million to fund two 50-megawatt batteries in Victoria, one at Kerang and at Ballarat.
The integrated system has been running since the end of last year and Ms D’Ambrosio said it was crucial during Victoria’s heatwave when a lot of the older energy sources, like the coal-fired Loy Yang power station in the Latrobe Valley, struggled to function.
“Everyone will remember that in January we had record extreme temperatures, especially in north-western Victoria where there were temperatures of 49 degrees,” she said.
“This battery was still be producing and providing electricity during those really extreme heat temperatures.”
Chief executive of Edify Energy, John Cole, described the battery as a sophisticated piece of equipment that was unlike anything else in Victoria’s energy network.
“The battery can be used to provide strengthening to the network when required, it can store power, and it responds to network issues in milliseconds rather than minutes,” he said.
Manager for economic development at the Gannawarra Shire Council, Roger Griffith, said the project was great for the small town of about 4000 people.
“If you look at the positive profile of renewable energy around Kerang, it’s probably a much more positive profile than the town had 25 years ago,” he said.
“We have planning permits in place for eight large-scale solar farms,” Mr Griffith said.
“This is the first, the second one is under construction, and the other six are at various stages of development.
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One Response
Kerang Solar Farm:
This is a great start, but not a real solution. the article OMITTED several key facts so that the “gee-wiz” journalism is not watered down:
Fact 1: The solar is 40 MW which means a 50 MW battery will only last 1 hour. (ie does not solve the problem of “daily sun pattern”)
Fact 2: The actual PURPOSE of the battery is to smooth the very short term intermittency of the solar farm in variable cloudy weather over a 5 to 10 minute period
If I am wrong in these details, the ARTICLE should have been more clear.
Ed