First of 2,600 battery units arrive for installation at Australia’s biggest grid “shock absorber”

The first shipment of 2,600 battery units for the giant Waratah Super Battery in NSW have arrived in Australia and are being shipped to the project site at the now shuttered Munmorah coal-fired power station.

The Waratah Super Battery will be the biggest in Australia once complete, with a capacity of 850 MW and 1680 MWh, although it may not hold that title for long with the 500 MW, 2000 MWh Collie battery in Western Australia, now under construction at the site of another former coal fired power station.

The Waratah battery however will act as a kind of giant “shock absorber”, using its size (it is the biggest single unit to be connected to Australia’s main grid) and flexibility to allowing the main transmission lines feeding into the state’s biggest load centres to transport power at full capacity.

It is one of the key additions to the grid to help fill in the gap left by the planned closure of the 2.88 GW Eraring coal generator in August next year, although the timing of that closure could be shifted, depending on negotiations between coal plant owner Origin and the NSW government.

Battery project owner Akaysha Energy is already well advanced with works at the site, securing the GPS connection agreement with the market operator and network owner, and installing the inverter components. In February, the first of 3 ‘super load’ transformers arrived on site after a lengthy road trip.

The arrival of the actual battery units are the first energy components to reach the site. They are being provided by the US-based Powin. They are being shipped into the Port of Newcastle and will be transported to the site by road over the next several months.

EnergyCo says the Waratah Super Battery is on track to be fully operational by August 2025.

“This is a significant milestone because it’s the first shipment of equipment that will store the energy in the battery,” EnergyCo’s head of network planning and technical advisory Andrew Kingsmill said.

Transgrid connecting the Waratah Super Battery to the grid via its existing Munmorah substation and carrying out upgrades to the NSW transmission network, including a $30 million System Integrity Protection Scheme.

This will control the super battery’s activation and ensure it can respond almost instantly to any disruptions in the power system.