Development plans lodged for NEM’s biggest battery project and neighbouring solar farm

The development application for what will be the biggest battery on Australia’s main grid, along with a massive solar farm, have been lodged with the NSW planning department.

Ark Energy, the local renewable and storage subsidiary of Korea Zinc, is planning to build the 275 megawatt (MW) Richmond Valley battery with eight hours of storage, or 2,200 megawatt hours (MWh), near Myrtle Creek in the Richmond Valley of northern NSW.

The battery will be the biggest on the National Electricity Market, and will be second only in size in Australia to the 560 MW and 2240 MWh Collie battery that is currently being built by Neoen in Collie in Western Australia, which operates a separate grid.

The battery will be sited next to the 500 MW Richmond Valley solar farm and will be built on land currently used for grazing and previously used for a private forestry business. There are two landowners involved. It is not located in any of the state’s five proposed renewable energy zones.

“The location is well suited for solar energy generation,” the company says. “The land was previously used for private forestry and is relatively flat.

“There is an excellent solar resource and it is close to the transmission network, with the Coffs Harbour to Lismore
330 kV powerline intersecting the north-west corner of the site.”

Ark Energy puts the expected cost of the project at $1.2 billion, which reflects both the falling cost of solar PV modules, and the plunging cost of battery cells. Construction, which will include a link to the main 330 kV transmission line, will likely take two years, with the project having a 30-year life.

The Richmond Valley battery was one of the big winners of the latest tender for long duration storage held by the NSW government as it seeks to build the capacity needed to replace the ageing coal fired power generators that are due to retire in the next decade.

It is the biggest of three eight-hour battery projects that have obtained underwriting agreements from the NSW government, with the other two being the 50 MW, 400 MWh Limondale battery to be built by RWE in the state’s south west and the 49 MW, 392 MWh Goulburn River battery to be built by Lightsource.

A public information session will be held on August 14.

Ark Energy earlier this week revealed it had shelved plans to build a 340 MW wind project near Tamworth in the New England region of NSW after an apparent change of mind by some of the project’s landowner hosts.

In April it withdrew an application for the nearly 300MW Wooroora wind farm in northern Queensland, and last October dropped plans for the 50 MW Western Plans wind project near Stanley in north-west Tasmania.