Alinta gets state grant and approval for resized Port Hedland big battery

Energy utility Alinta has received a $1.5 million grant from the state government for its proposed Port Hedland big battery, the first big storage facility in a grid supplying BHP iron ore mines and regional centres.

The grant came just one day after Alinta received planning approval for the battery, which will enable the company to switch off gas reciprocating engines that act as back-up to the gas engines that are generating electricity.

The battery was first proposed as a 30MW facility with four hours storage (120MWh), but after further studies has been modified to 60MW with two hours storage (still 120MWh), as that will work better with the existing gas plant and the proposed solar farm.

The Port Hedland battery will play a similar, but broader role, to the successful Newman battery (pictured above), which has delivered big savings to Alinta, and improved reliability to its big mining customers, by acting as stand-by for the array of gas generators at the Newman station.

The Newman battery was sized as 35MW with just 20 minutes of storage – enough to hold the fort should the gas engines fail – but the Port Hedland battery will have a broader role of “time shifting” up to 90MW of solar and allowing more renewables into the grid.

The various grids in the Pilbara region act as stand-alone networks, largely as a result of the legacy arrangements put in by various mining groups. There is a notional plan to link them all at some stage, and a new independent operator – Horizon Energy – has been appointed.

Approval for the Port Hedland battery was granted last Thursday by the state planning authorities, subject to four conditions, including one that it make a $150,000 donation to public art prior to construction.

A day later, the state government announced that the battery was one of seven projects to receive grant funding under its Clean Energy Future Fund, as we reported here.

The government noted that the battery would replace spinning reserve at the gas generator, saving on fuel and emissions, and energy would be stored in the battery to provide instant support to the grid when needed.

See also: Big Battery Storage Map of Australia