South Australia’s biggest battery project secures buyer and “quite enormous” offtake deal

The first part of what will be South Australia’s biggest battery project, a gigascale energy park on the state’s Limestone Coast, will go ahead after being bought by Intera Renewables, the clean energy investment platform of Australian asset manager, Palisade Investment Partners.

UK developer Pacific Green said on Friday that it has agreed to sell the 250 megawatt (MW), two-hour Limestone Coast North Energy Park to Intera for $A460 million (US$293 million), in a deal that should see the battery energy storage system (BESS) operational by early 2027.

And in a separate deal, Pacific Green has also announced that it has entered into the first of a portfolio of long term “tolling” Power Purchase Agreements with Zen Energy for off-take of 100 per cent of the Limestone Coast North BESS.

The 500 megawatt-hour (500MWh) big battery, located around 10km outside of Mount Gambier, is the first part of Pacific Green’s giga-scale Limestone Coast Energy Park project, which proposes to add another 250 MW/1000 MWh Limestone Coast West BESS at the same location.

When first announced in 2023, Pacific Green’s Limestone Coast plans promised to deliver the biggest battery in South Australia, trumping the previous “biggest” project – the 240 MW/ 960 MWh Summerfield battery, now under construction – unveiled just a day earlier by Denmark’s CIP.

With a final capacity of 500 MW/ 1,500 MWh, it will certainly do so – although possibly not for long, given the level of demand and the pace of investment in the market.

The four-hour Limestone Coast West project, still fully owned by Pacific Green, was one of the winners of the first round of the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme. It is hoped to reach financial close mid-way through this year and then begin construction in September.

But it is the sale of Limestone Coast North that the company is celebrating this week, as the “latest milestone in a major period of growth” in Australia and the first of a 10GWh development pipeline of battery energy parks it plans to roll out across the country.

“This is a significant milestone for our Australian business and underscores our focus on assets that represent clear commercial feasibility and deliver net-zero objectives for Australia,” Pacific Green Australia managing director and CEO, Joel Alexander, said on Friday.

As part of the deal, Pacific Green will be retained to manage the construction of the project through to commercial operations following which Palisade Integrated Management Services (PIMS) will carry out asset management activities through its role as Intera’s asset manager.

For Palisade, Limestone Coast North represents its first foray into large-scale energy storage – an investment that executive director Simon Parbery says provides attractive risk-adjusted returns, as well as long term strategic benefits for its Australian renewables platform.

“We are excited to be working with Pacific Green on this significant project for both our investors, and Australia’s broader clean energy transition goals,” Parbery said on Friday.

On the tolling PPA with Zen Energy, Alexander says this means Zen is taking 100% of the Limestone Coast North battery’s capacity for a fixed price for 12 years, which he adds is “quite enormous, really.”

“It’s significant PPA, there’s no two ways about it. And I think with [Zen’s] ambition to be the 1.5°C green retailer it just really fits perfectly with their business plan,” Alexander told Renew Economy on Friday.

“They have full dispatch rights, so they will charge and discharge at their discretion, and the markets available will be wholesale, FCAS [frequency control ancillary services] and network support, and then, of course, using for their own their own customer book as a natural hedge.

“So we’re absolutely thrilled that we’re able to to do a deal with Zen, particularly for this first asset right on the interconnector, which we know is really important for them.”

“Right on the interconnecter” here refers to the location of the BESS, which – as the company noted back in 2023 – is strategically located in South Australia’s south east, across from an existing substation that feeds into the Heywood Interconnector, that links South Australia and Victoria.

According to the project website, the energy park’s two batteries “will collectively store up to 60% of South Australia’s residential solar output,” with Limestone Coast North project expected to reduce average wholesale electricity prices in the South Australian market by around $1/MWh from 2030 to 2050.

The juxtaposition of the two batteries – one fully contracted with two hours of storage and one backed by the CIS and likely to operated on a merchant basis, with four hours of storage – is also something Alexander says the company is “excited” about.

“So you have two batteries, at the same location, but effectively operating very differently, which is wonderful the for the market, obviously, because they’re hitting different notes,” he tells Renew Economy.

“They’re doing exactly what they’re intended to do, which is, you know, provide as much support to the market, both on a wholesale and on a frequency [control ancillary services] basis, as they as they can.”

Elsewhere, the company’s Portland Energy Park – 1,000 MW/2,500 MWh project proposal across four co-located battery assets in Victoria – is finalising development approval with construction expected to commence in March 2026. Pacific Green has also acquired land rights in Wagga Wagga for its first NSW project.

“So [Portland] is a really exciting project, because that Portland terminal station can be a point of connection for new projects in the area, such as offshore wind or or any onshore projects. So we’re pretty excited by that,” Alexander says.

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