Big Battery Boom
For anyone who’s into big batteries - bigger than that Tesla over your fireplace - it doesn't get more exciting than this! The final output from TEC’s ECA-funded Networks + batteries project reveals big battery projects taking off around Australia.
A few quick takeaways:
1. Compared to this time last year, when our list consisted almost entirely of network trials, the sector has exploded with a range of government, retailer and other private projects.
2. The range of business cases and value streams has likewise increased greatly, from mostly peak demand management/avoided capex and frequency/voltage control to P2P energy trading, supplying onsite/nearby C&! loads, supplying state government needs and SOPS (saving our political skins).
3. For obvious reasons (balancing renewables, a sympathetic state government, and lots of wind and solar as well as sheep, rocks and wide open spaces) SA has the lion’s share. At the other end of the spectrum there is only one network trial in Tasmania (which is one big battery thanks to flooding all those wild rivers till Bob Brown and company came along) and two in NSW, which has no such excuse (TransGrid proposed a big battery to smooth the output from three new wind farms on the Northern Tablelands, but the proponents couldn’t agree on where to put the hub).
4. Most batteries are lithium-ion with one molten salt storage; within a few years new pumped hydro will no doubt need to be added to this list. (Existing pumped hydro plants aren’t included.)
5. The bolter in this race is Queensland. Here’s one reason why (it’s about the new Kennedy Energy Park project near Townsville):
“On a typical day the solar resource ramps up in the morning as the wind slows down, and in the evening as the sun is setting the wind picks up and continues to generate steady power throughout the night. The result of this complementary relationship is highly reliable renewable electricity generation that overcomes the intermittency so often associated with wind energy or solar energy alone.”
So who needs coal and gas?!
6. For all the publicity Tesla’s big battery for the SA Government received, the real game-changer is the almost-nearby Aurora Port Augusta solar thermal plant - not just for the technology but also for its scale - slightly more peak output but 9 times more total storage capacity than the Tesla. That’s about half the total national storage capacity in one plant. Go SA!
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