The announcement of a large, long-duration battery for the South Australian capital, Adelaide, has been hailed as a milestone in the developing technology that is competing with fossil fuels to support wind and solar energy.
The energy company AGL, which owns several coal plants and is Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, announced today it would build a large-scale battery on the site of the Torrens Island gas station, which is due to shut by 2022.
Guardian Australia reports it said the battery would be built in stages and have an eventual power capacity of up to 250 megawatts (MW), greater than an existing battery at Hornsdale in South Australia, but less than a 300MW facility planned by the Victorian state Labor government for a site near the regional city of Geelong.
The AGL development differs markedly from existing and other proposed Australian batteries in having a duration for up to four hours.
Existing batteries in Australia are used to bolster the security of the grid when something goes wrong, such as a major transmission line being taken out or a power station “tripping”.
They are able to rapidly fill the gap to prevent the grid collapsing.
The AGL battery would be the first in the country specifically designed to store energy generated when the sun is shining or the wind blowing and release it into the grid when electricity use reaches a peak.
Guardian Australia reports the company’s decision is noteworthy for having been made without government support or intervention, unlike other recent proposals for gas, battery and pumped hydro projects backed by the conservative Liberal-National federal government and other states.
AGL’s chief executive, Brett Redman, said the company was “getting on with the business of energy transition”.
“This battery is another step in the state’s energy transition, while at the same time allowing a rapid response to changes in renewable generation when our customers and communities need it,” he said.
He said the Torrens Island battery was part of a plan to build 850MW of energy storage capacity by 2023-24.
Guardian Australia reports battery technology has taken off more rapidly than was predicted.
An Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) forecast in 2016 suggested the country might have only 4.0MW of large-scale batteries by 2020, and build no more than that before 2036.
A report released earlier this month said the country already had 287MW in operation or committed to construction.
That does not include the Victorian 300MW battery near Geelong, billed as one of the biggest in the world.
Simon Holmes à Court, a senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University, said the Torrens Island battery was a significant milestone, as the company could have opted for a new gas-fired plant.
“It is the first battery that is competing with gas generators in Australia, and it’s completely unsubsidised,” he said.
South Australia’s Liberal-National state government said it would support the battery by granting a planning exemption.
The SA energy minister, Dan van Holst Pellekaan, said it would help “restore the grid to strength” and meet its aspirational goal of net-100 per cent renewable energy.
South Australia has generated 57 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources over the past year.
The Liberal-National federal government argues that new gas-fired power plants are essential for the reliability and security of the national grid as variable wind and solar replaces ageing coal-fired power plants.
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