Australia is drenched in sunshine more often than not, which makes it a really perfect location for solar energy. That’s good. However as extra photo voltaic vitality will get added, it comes near overwhelming the grid with an abundance of renewable vitality through the noon hours whereas not being out there within the late afternoon and early night hours when demand for electrical energy highest. That’s unhealthy. Neoen has an answer — huge battery storage amenities that absorb all of that electrical energy and ship it again to the grid later within the day.
The imbalance between provide and demand ends in what is thought within the business because the “duck curve,” and, because the illustration above exhibits, authorities in Western Australia count on the imbalance to accentuate in coming years as extra photo voltaic electrical energy will get added, most of it from rooftop photo voltaic methods.
The important thing to the success of renewable vitality is to seize most of it when it’s ample and make it out there to the grid when it’s wanted, a course of often called time shifting. Western Australia is exclusive in that its electrical grid just isn’t interconnected with these in different Australian states or territories. Partly, that’s due to the big distances between Western Australia and the remainder of the nation, which imply Western Australia is by itself in the case of managing its grid.
Till now, Western Australia has relied totally on coal-fired thermal producing stations for the majority of its electrical energy, however as the price of renewable vitality continues to fall, these coal-powered amenities have gotten much less worthwhile. To assist absorb the huge quantity of solar energy out there through the day, the Australian Vitality Market Operator (AEMO), on the request of the Western Australian Coordinator of Vitality, has accepted a proposal by Neoen to put in a 197 MW battery close to the city of Collie in Western Australia with a 4-hour discharge time.
In response to Neoen, the brand new facility will include 224 Tesla Megapack 2XL models. It’s the first part of a 1 GW/4 GWh venture first proposed in December of 2022. The battery will likely be positioned on land of the Wilman individuals of the Bibbulmun nation within the South West area of Western Australia. It’ll hook up with Western Energy’s Shotts Terminal substation, which is a part of the South-West Interconnected System.
The Collie Battery is Neoen’s sixth large battery in Australia, bringing its complete Australian storage belongings to over 1.1 GW in operation or below development, and additional cementing its place because the nation’s main developer, proprietor, and operator of batteries. It already owns and operates the 300 MW/450 MWh Victorian Massive Battery in Geelong and the 150 MW/193.5 MWh Hornsdale Energy Reserve in South Australia. Its 100 MW/200 MWh Capital Battery, 200 MW/400 MWh Blyth Battery, and 200 MW/400 MWh Western Downs Battery are all at the moment below development.
A part of the impetus for the brand new battery in Western Australia is that state’s curiosity in offering renewable vitality to new industries supplying inexperienced hydrogen and different low-carbon merchandise to Australia and the world. Western Australia just lately issued a brand new demand forecast that anticipates the necessity for greater than 50 GW of recent wind, photo voltaic, and storage to fulfill these rising calls for for zero-carbon vitality.
The state’s extra rapid focus, nonetheless, is to offer the required firming capability to permit coal to exit and to help the rising share of rooftop photo voltaic in Western Australia, which is the world’s largest remoted grid and has no capability to import or export energy.
Neoen’s Western Australia head Nathan Ling mentioned the corporate recognized a necessity for battery storage a number of years in the past. “I feel this demonstrates that markets are altering as we’re changing into much less reliant on fossil gasoline era and extra on renewables,” Ling instructed RenewEconomy. “The providers from batteries are additionally altering away from the frequency and ancillary providers which batteries will proceed to offer, and this one will do the identical, but in addition offering extra of these firming providers by with the ability to agency up renewables and shift era to when it’s most wanted.”
Neoen says it has been engaged on the venture since 2021, and has already given a discover to proceed to development firm UGL and to Tesla, which can provide 224 of its Tesla 2XL Megapacks. The primary stage will likely be sized barely bigger than the AEMO contract, and the power has planning approval for a complete of 1GW/4GWh of battery storage. The Collie battery would be the first 4-hour battery to be constructed by Neoen, and its sixth massive standalone battery general in Australia. It additionally owns a number of massive wind and photo voltaic initiatives.
“That is an thrilling time for Neoen as it’s our first main venture in WA, and it additionally means we now have an enormous battery in 5 of the six Australian states,” Louis de Sambucy, the pinnacle of Neoen Australia, mentioned in a press release. “With our rising staff in Perth and a powerful pipeline of initiatives, we look ahead to taking part in an more and more vital function within the state’s fast decarbonization.”
“Renewable vitality infrastructure, reminiscent of Neoen’s large battery, is a key issue within the attraction of recent, revolutionary and sustainable industries that can cement Collie’s place as an essential industrial hub, offering worthwhile employment alternatives for generations to come back,” mentioned Collie shire president Sarah Stanley.
The Takeaway
Within the absence of sufficient battery storage, the renewable vitality revolution in Western Australia would destabilize that state’s utility grid for a big time period most days. Till now, offering ancillary providers like voltage and frequency stabilization has been on the coronary heart of the enterprise case for such massive battery storage initiatives, however now their time shifting functionality is taking over a extra outstanding function.
Neoen mentioned in a separate announcement that it’s growing its forecast working earnings in FY 2025 to greater than €700 million from the €600 million beforehand suggested only a month in the past. That is a rise of $160 million a 12 months, and whereas Neoen just isn’t saying that every one of that enhance in income is attributable to this new battery contract, RenewEconomy suggests it should account for a big a part of the rise.
Australia has lengthy relied on coal for its electrical energy, with one former minister crowing that the nation has sufficient coal to energy the world for a thousand years. After all, if that occurred, there could be no want for electrical energy in any respect as a result of only a few people could be left alive to eat it.
Featured picture courtesy of Synergy
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