Australia’s first eight-hour battery project registers with market operator, to begin testing on grid

The first eight-hour lithium-ion big battery to be be built in Australia – and one of the first in the world – is now registered with the Australian Energy Market Operator and ready to begin its landmark commissioning process.

The Limondale battery, near Balranald in the south-west of NSW, is being built by German energy giant RWE with Tesla Megapack technology.

It won a landmark auction for long duration storage in May, 2023, with a proposal to build a 50 megawatt (MW), 400 megawatt hour (MWh) battery next to the solar farm of the same name.

That tender win came as a bit of a surprise at the time, given that the long duration tender held by the NSW government appeared initially designed for other storage technologies such as pumped hydro.

But lithium-ion costs have been falling rapidly and pumped hydro is crippled by soaring civil construction costs. RWE’s landmark win with Limondale has since been followed by a number of other, mostly bigger, eight hour battery project proposals.

The project features 144 Tesla Megapack battery modules, which has delivered more capacity than specified in its tender win. According to GPE NEMLog’s Geoff Eldridge, it has installed 536 MWh, but battery projects often oversized to allow for any losses or degradation.

In a statement, RWE Renewables Australia, said the registration milestone marks the transition from construction into hold point testing, and the project is expected to be fully commissioned by the end of this year.

“The registration of the Limondale BESS marks a defining moment for long-duration battery storage in Australia,” said Daniel Belton, the CEO of RWE Renewables Australia.

“We are proud to bring our global expertise to deliver this pioneering project, which will support New South Wales’ shift to cleaner, more reliable energy.

“Battery storage is a key enabler of the energy transition. With projects like Limondale BESS, RWE is helping to unlock the full value of renewable generation by ensuring energy is available when it’s needed most.”

The project was the first recipient of a Long-Term Energy Service Agreement (LTESA) under NSW Long Duration Storage tender.

Since then, LTESAs have been awarded to four other eight hour batteries including Goulburn River (49, 392 MWh), Richmond Valley (275 MW, 2,200 MWh), Stoney Creek (125 MW, 1,000 MWh) and Griffith (100 MW and 800 MWh).

Oher eight-hour big batteries are also in the development pipeline, including the newly approved Nowingi battery (300 MW, 2,400 MWh), that will be paired with a 300 MW solar project as part of a solar-battery hybrid.

NSW currently has another tender for 1,000 MW and 8,000 MWh of long duration storage, although some of this capacity is likely to be met by pumped hydro or other long duration technologies.

RWE says that once fully operational, the Limondale BESS will store excess renewable energy generated during the day and dispatch it into the grid when demand is high, improving grid stability and enabling greater use of renewables in the energy mix.

The project has been supported by Tesla, Beon, Lumia and Transgrid.

RWE also owns and operates the Limondale solar farm, which began full operations in 2021, and is working through final approvals for its proposed 1 gigawatt Theodore wind farm in Queensland, and is developing a number of other wind, solar and battery projects.

See also Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia

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