Australia’s most powerful battery injects full capacity into grid for first time as it nears commissioning

Australia’s most powerful battery has injected its full 850 megawatt (MW) capacity into the grid for the first time as it nears full commissioning and another step change in the way the electricity grid is managed.

The Waratah Super Battery is rated at 850 MW and 1680 MWh.

It is not the biggest battery by storage capacity – that title is held for the moment by Neoen’s 2,240 MWh Collie battery in Western Australia.

But it is the biggest battery by capacity, and in fact the biggest of any type of machine to appear on Australia’s grid.

At 8.30am on Friday morning, Waratah injected its full capacity of 850 MW as it conducted its last “hold point” testing, and then also charged at a rate of 844 MW in the early afternoon. See graph below sourced from Open Electricity.

To give an idea of how much bigger Waratah is than any other battery in NSW, that 850 MW discharge was more than any combined discharge of all the other eight fully operating batters in the state.

The Waratah battery, built at the site of the shuttered Munmorah coal plant on the central coast of NSW, is designed principally to act as a giant “shock absorber” – but its presence points to the fundamental changes on a grid that is now focused on maximum flexibility and dealing with increased complexity.

That primary role as “shock absorber” will allow the main transmission lines feeding into the state’s biggest load centres – Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong – to run at much higher capacity. Waratah will be on standby ready to react in an instant should there be a fault or disturbance.

To add to the complexity, the “shock absorber” contract for Waratah is linked with three other facilities – the Metz solar farm, the Sapphire wind farm, and the Tumut pumped hydro generator that will also respond should Waratah be needed to step in.

The contract is also sculpted, meaning that at times Waratah needs to make available 700 MW and 1,400 MWh of capacity, and less capacity at other times. It will trade the rest of the battery’s capacity on the open market.

But the sheer scale of Waratah’s power – and its speed of response – may also offer some reassurance to the Australian Energy Market Operator should it need to deal with lack of reserve conditions, or the sudden loss of a major generation unit, which is a constant worry in the summer heat.

Waratah is the most powerful of nearly 50 big batteries that are operating or working their way through their commissioning process in Australia.

It’s not just new technologies entering the market, it is also new market players. Waratah’s owner, Akaysha Energy, literally came from nowhere to win that contract and is now also commissioning the smaller Brendale and Ulinda Park batteries in Queensland, and building the 415 MW, 1660 MWh Orana battery in NSW.

It has also been announced as a winner of underwriting agreements under the Capacity Investment Scheme for a new battery in Victoria, Deer Park, and an extension of the Ulinda Park battery.

See also Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia for more information.

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