“A relief:” Australia an oasis for battery storage developers as Trump tariffs disrupt US projects

One of the newly emerging big players in the Australian battery storage markets says Australia has been largely shielded from the disruption in the US market in the last few months caused by Donald Trump’s tariff war with China.

Energy Vault, the Swiss-domiciled, California-based and US listed storage developer, says Australia is now emerging as its key market, both for the contracted projects it is building for the likes of Acen Renewables and OX2, and for projects it is building on its own account.

The company has signed contract to build Acen’s 200 MW, 400 MWh battery project next to the New England solar farm in northern NSW, and the SEC’s newly purchased 100 MW/200 MWh Horsham battery project in Victoria.

CEO Robert Piconi says the company also has 2.8 GWh of its own battery projects in the pipeline from three big project in Australia.

These projects, including two eight-hour battery projects at Sandy Creek near Narrabri in NSW and at Meadow Creek, dwarf the size of its US pipeline, and Piconi expects the seven owned and operating projects to deliver $US100 million in annual earnings once complete.

That will mark a transformation in the fortunes of the company, which has reported March quarter revenues of just $US8.5 million – helped along by its initial work with Acen, and a quarterly loss of $US11.3 million, a smaller loss than the $US14.5 million in the same quarter last year.

Stoney Creek is the most advanced of the Australian owner-operate battery projects and has landed a 14-year underwriting agreement with the NSW state government.

Piconi says the US storage market, where the company has a number of project, has breathed “a sigh of relief” after the 90 day suspension of additional tariffs agreed by the US and China earlier this week, pending further talks.

“I’m encouraged to see the China US tariff pause a bit,” Piconi told investors in an earnings call early Tuesday (Australia time).

“As we got into April, when the tariff rhetoric started to key up, and what became very real as things were put in place with the reciprocal tariffs, things basically locked and stopped

“So it just created a situation where people went into a wait and see mode generally. We were fortunate in that we have exposure to Australia, other parts of the world for the business.

“So we’ve had that, that played to our benefit. But absolutely, we were expecting to deliver even more bookings at this point.”

Piconi says Energy Vault, which uses a range of battery suppliers, including BYD and CATL, has one US project set for delivery this year, but has the option of a non-Chinese alternative supplier.

“It’s worth noting that we’re largely shielded from US tariff risk due to a strong Australian presence, license agreements and enhanced asset ownership representing 90% of our backlog today.

“So you’re going to be hearing more and more from us this year as we contracted some of the initial projects in Australia. And now we’ll begin to recognise revenue as those begin to construct. 

“Those seven projects alone will get us to something in the range of about $US100 million of recurring operating EBITDA.”