Broken Hill compressed air storage project gets funding boost from Canadian government

Hydrostor, a long-duration energy storage (LDES) developer based in Toronto, Canada, has this week secured $US55 million in funding from the Canadian government to support development of a 200-megawatt (MW) advanced compressed air energy storage project in New South Wales.

The $US55 million (around $A82 million) in funding comes from Export Development Canada (EDC), the country’s export credit agency and a Crown corporation wholly owned by the Canadian government.

Hydrostor is a developer and operator of advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) projects which, as the name suggests, use a simple combination of air, water, and underground hard rock caverns to provide proven long-duration energy storage of eight hours or more.

Its flagship project is the 200 MW Silver City Energy Storage Centre, which will deliver 1,600 megawatt-hours (MWh), or at least 8 hours, of energy storage for Broken Hill and surrounding areas.

This will boost grid security and reliability and with the ability to create a renewable mini grid in case transmission lines are down, as occurred earlier this year when storms tore down multiple towers, leaving the township and surround areas struggling to secure electricity supplies.

Silver City’s development agreement was approved by the NSW government earlier this year, and has also already secured a network service agreement with Transgrid and a Long-Term Energy Service Agreement (LTESA) from AEMO Services, under the New South Wales government’s electricity infrastructure roadmap.

The funding will be used to support development activities for Silver City, including financing development expenditures and letter of credit requirements.

“This financing from Export Development Canada takes Hydrostor another step closer to bringing our Silver City project to market and proves once again global momentum is growing behind long-duration energy storage technology, particularly A-CAES,” said Curtis VanWalleghem, co-founder and CEO of Hydrostor.

Hydrostor already has a successful utility scale facility commercially contracted to the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) located in Goderich, Ontario, as well as a second project under late-stage development in Kern County, California.

Hydrostor says it has a pipeline of over 7 gigawatts (GW) of early-stage projects in development in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States.

“At EDC, we’re proud to bring Canadian financing expertise to support Hydrostor’s development of one of Australia’s most ambitious long-duration energy storage projects,” said Alison Nankivell, president and CEO of EDC.  

“This financing underscores our commitment to advancing first-of-a-kind utility-scale renewable energy solutions—key drivers of the global energy transition, both at home and abroad.”

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