Federal government gives rapid approval for one of Australia’s biggest battery projects, near smelter

The federal government has granted conditional approval for the massive Portland Energy Park in regional Victoria, a proposed 1 gigawatt (GW), 2.5 gigawatt-hour (GWh) battery project that will be one of the b biggest in the country.

The approval comes nearly two months after the project was fast-tracked through Victoria’s Development Facilitation Program.

The Portland battery is being developed by British clean energy developer Pacific Green, and is expected to be built out over four 250-megawatt (MW) phases.

Approval was granted with the normal bevy of conditions around plan modifications, updates, and completion, but also listed several environmental-specific conditions.

Construction of the project must not clear more than 10.827 hectares (ha) of Blue-wined parrot foraging habitat and 0.072 ha of Southern Brown Bandicoot and Swamp Antechinus habitat.

Additionally, all temporary and permanent lighting within the development area must be installed and used in accordance with the National Light Pollution Guidelines.

The development of the Portland Energy Park is the next step in Pacific Green’s 7 GWh pipeline of Australian battery energy parks, following the start of development at the 500 MW /1 GWh Limestone Coast Energy Park in regional South Australia.

The Limestone Coast Energy Park is being developed in two 250MW / 500MWh phases, with the first phase already under construction and the second set to begin later this year. It has landed an underwriting agreement with the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme.

At 1 GW, the Portland battery would be the largest battery in Australia – compared to other existing or committed projects – although some proposals envisage even bigger projects.

However, its storage capacity of 2,500 MWh is lower than other batteries already under construction, including the 760 MW/3,096 MWh Supernode battery being built on the outskirts of Brisbane and the 700 MW/2,800 MWh Eraring battery in New South Wales.

The Supernode battery, owned by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, is in talks of a fourth stage with eight hour batteries, possibly 250 MW and 2,000 MWh, that will take total capacity to more than 1 GW and 5 GWh.

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

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