West Australian construction company GenusPlus has been awarded the contract to build the 200 megawatt (MW)/800 megawatt-hour (MWh) Koolunga battery energy storage system (BESS) project in South Australia.
Under development by Singaporean developer Equis Development, the Koolunga BESS project, located 180 kilometres north of Adelaide in the town of Koolunga, will boast a nameplate capacity of 200 MW and generation of 800 MWh, or four hours of 200 MW.
It is one of nearly a dozen new big battery projects currently being built in South Australia, which aims to reach 100 per cent net renewables by the end of next year. It is currently sourcing an average of 75 per cent of its grid demand from wind and solar, supported by a number of big batteries that are already operating.
GenusPlus Group says it has secured the contract for the engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning for the Balance of Plant scope and Koolunga BESS installation.
Construction of the battery project is expected to take up to 18 months, with works to reportedly start “shortly” and be completed by September 2027. The project will consist of up to 640 battery containers covering approximately 1.8 hectares of land and create up to 115 jobs during construction, and 5 ongoing operational jobs.
Once completed, the battery will be connected to South Australia’s electricity grid via a 1.2 kilometre high-voltage cable via the 275kV Brinkworth Substation.
“This is a milestone project for Genus,” said David Riches, managing director of GenusPlus.
“This contract gives us great confidence that the market sees our capability and capacity to deliver a project of this size and complexity. We look forward to working closely with Equis to deliver the project safely, successfully and on time.”
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