Energy Insiders Podcast: Energy Estate’s very big storage play

Renew Estate and its related company Energy Estate are quickly emerging as one of the most interesting and astute developers of renewable energy projects in Australia.

Earlier this month, Renew Estate sealed a landmark deal on its Bomen solar farm near Wagga Wagga, signing contracts with Westpac, a leading winemaker and a major snack foods company, and then selling the asset to the network owner who will connect it.

Now, Energy Estate has its eye on a bigger prize. Co-founder and principal Simon Currie tells Energy Insiders that the development application for a 700MW solar farm and a 100MW/200MWh large scale battery have just been filed with the NSW government, the first stage of the proposed 4,000MW Walcha renewable energy project.

This project, which would be the biggest to connect to Australia’s grid, is looking to combine solar, wind, battery storage and pumped hydro.

Currie says it is just one part of the massive changes that are occurring in Australian’s market. Storage is now the key to new wind and solar developments, the push by networks into owning generation assets will be a big change, and new rule changes will play a key role in the shape of the market to come.

You can listen to this and other episodes of Energy Insiders, and our other podcast series Solar Insiders and The Driven, here and on your favourite podcast platform.