Another battery project underway to manage low loads and rooftop PV in W.A.’s main grid

The rapid roll-out of big batteries in Western Australia’s main grid continues, with the official “sod-turning” of the fifth big battery to begin contruction in the last two years, a 100 MW, two hour (200 MWh) facility at Wagerup.

The new big battery project is being built by Alinta Energy, and is being fast tracked so it can help the grid operator manage the falls in minimum load created by the rapid growth of rooftop solar PB in the grid.

Its role, under a contract with the Australian Energy Market Operator, will be to absorb rooftop solar in the middle of the day and push it back into the grid in the evening peak. W.A’s challenges with this work is exacerbated by the lack of connection to other grid. It is described as the biggest standalone grid in the world.

Other batteries have similar contracts, or job descriptions, including the 217 MW, four hour Neoen battery at Collie, a bigger Synergy battery (500 MW and 2000 MWh) near the same coal town, and the two Kwinana batteries, one of which is already built.

State energy minister Bill Johnston, who attended the sod-turning at the site next to a waste-to-energy facility, pointed to the growing share of renewables – it hit a recent peak of 84 per cent – and the setting of new minimum demand levels (below 600 MW for the first time) for the critical need for battery storage.

“Having batteries is an important contributor to raising that minimum demand, but also giving you more flexibility in the network to take account of the variable renewable outputs,” he said. “So it’s a big win for us all.”

Johnston said the state is expecting demand to increase nearly four-fold in the next two decades amid a huge surge in demand for cheap and green energy for miners, refiners and manufacturers to sell low emissions goods into the international market.

“We think electricity demand go up about 350%,” Johnston said.

“And that’s a lot of opportunity for private sector investment. It’s often billed as just being about replacing the coal stations …. (bt) there’s there’s lots of opportunities as companies like Alcoa and others move to respond to the need to decarbonise.

“There’s a lot of need for further investment … and this (battery) this is a very critical piece of infrastructure.”

He also noted that AEMO is seeking another 340 MW of capacity under its Non-Co-optimised Essential System Services (NCESS) mechanism, which has awarded a contract with the Wagerup battery, although the new component appears focused on ensuring enough supply in evening peaks between 2025 and 2027.

Alinta built its first big battery at Newman, in the Pilbara, in 2017, but this is its first on the main grid in the state.

“Batteries like this will help stabilise the grid and move the energy around to where it’s needed,” said Chris Campbell, the head of Alinta in W.A.

Alinta has appointed Shanghai Electric Power Design Institute and Sunterra to build the 100MW, two-hour (200MWh) battery, and it is expected to be in operation in time for the 2024/25 summer.

See also RenewEconomy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia