Fourteen new big battery storage projects proposed for NSW

The New South Wales government’s emerging renewables program has unearthed 14 different big battery projects for the state, along with a suite of other storage and “dispatchable” energy technologies ranging from compressed air storage, virtual power plants and some previously flagged large pumped hydro projects.

The 31 different proposals, 10 of which have been awarded funds for pre-investment studies and another 21 short-listed for potential capital funding, indicates the breadth of interest in new dispatchable energy proposals as NSW prepares for the likely retirement of its ageing coal generators in the coming decade.

But it is the number and scale of the 14 big battery projects that catch the eye – ranging in size from 10MW from Firm Energy all the way up to 250MW at the Buronga energy park proposed by Energy Estate near Mildura.

(Battery pedants please note: The hours of storage are not cited in the government documents as the project developers have likely not finalised the design of the projects, and will depend on their ultimate market needs).

NSW does not yet have any large scale batteries, unlike South Australia – which has two on line, two nearly finished and a further two under construction  – Victoria (two batteries on line and one under construction), and Queensland (one on line, one under construction and numerous proposed).

The NSW battery storage proposals include a 50MW battery planned for Broken Hill by AGL Energy, which may go some way for solving the problems the company has experienced withs severe curtailment of the 52MW Broken Hill solar farm and the 200MW Silverton wind farm, which are operated through its partially owned PARF investment fund.

Other battery projects are paired with existing wind and solar projects, such as Maoneng’s previously flagged Sunraysia solar battery (50MW), and Edify Energy’s Darlington solar battery (25MW) and the CWP Renewables’ Sapphire battery (30MW), to be sited next to the existing wind farm and proposed solar farm.

RES Australia proposes a 50MW battery near Newcastle, and Meridian Energy, intriguingly, is proposing a 20MW battery next to the Hume hydro power station in the Snowy Mountains region.

UPC proposes a 20MW battery in New England, and there is  10MW battery proposed for the Bomen solar farm, and there are couple of smaller 10MW batteries proposed elsewhere.

Network operators also have their own plans, with Transgrid proposing a 50MW battery in Western Sydney and Endeavour Energy putting forward a 10MW virtual power plant in western Sydney to harness renewable energy and deal with load requirements.

Other virtual power plants are proposed by German manufacturer Sonnen (27.6MW) across regional NSW, while Hivve Technology has a 5MW VPP planned for various schools. Flow Power and Solar Analytics also have proposals for 20MW VPPs.

Of the big pumped hydro projects, most are well known – such as the 600MW Oven Mountain project near Armidale, the 400MW UPC/AC Renewables project near Uralla, the 500MW Walcha Energy pumped hydro project at Dungowan Dam, and Origin’s proposed upgrade of the Shoalhaven pumped hydro facility.

The Newstan underground coal mine near Newcastle that is owned by Centennial Coal also proposes a small 8.5MW pumped hydro facility. No other details are provided.

Other technologies are also included. Canada”s Hydrostor, which is to build a compressed air storage facility in South Australia using an old sink mine, proposes a bigger 200MW compressed air storage facility at Broken Hill, which could also address curtailment issues in that area.

Of the other “new” technologies, Raygen is looking to move forward its concentrated solar PV technology with a proposal for a 5MW plant that would combine “integrated electro-thermal” storage.

And the shortlisted projects for capital funding are: