Frontier outlines plans for state’s biggest solar battery hybrid project to replace coal

The listed company Frontier Energy has unveiled plans to dramatically expand its Waroon solar battery hybrid project in Western Australia, helping to fill the gap created by the planned closure of the state’s last coal fired generators by the end of the decade.

Frontier is already building the first stage of the Waroona project – sized at 120 megawatts (MW) of solar with an 80 MW, 360 megawatt hour (MWh) battery – and now hopes to build this out in stages to a total of 1,000 MW of solar and up to 660 MW of battery (presumably with around 2,500 MWh of storage.

“Western Australia is undergoing a major energy transition, with the planned retirement of at least 1.3GW of ageing coal and gas generation assets before 2030,” CEO Adam Kiley said in a statement.

“Frontier’s Waroona Energy Park has the potential to play a major role in replacing this energy through our integrated solar / battery expansion strategy.

Frontier says its Waroona project is well positioned because it is next to an existing transmission line at the Landwehr Terminal in a strong part of the grid.

“Importantly, Frontier’s strategy is not contingent upon major grid expansion, which involves significant time and cost for both government and consumers,” Kiley said.

Western Australia, the biggest isolated grid in the world with no connections to other states or countries – plans to close the last of its state owned coal generators in 2029, and has recently outlined a major new transmission line to connect new wind and solar projects.

The Waroona project, located around 120 kms south of Perth, hit a few early roadblocks when it missed out on some early tenders conducted by the state government and the market operator.

But its path to construction now seems a bit clearer after it was named as one of four projects to win underwriting agreements in the first dispatchable tender held in the state under the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme.

Waroona is also in the running for capacity credits within the W.A. energy market, which the company says could be worth $31.8 million a year if allocated. Revenue from energy sales would be in addition to revenue received from Capacity Credits.

The first stage of Waroona is expected to be delivered in late 2027, assuming the company – one of the few listed renewable companies in Australia – gets its finance in place, and Frontier says it will also put a similarly sized second stage into a future round of the CIS tenders in W.A.

A presentation released earlier this year suggested that the $285 million first stage project could deliver annual pre-tax earnings of around $58 million a year from the capacity credits and other revenue streams.

W.A. already plays host to the country’s first large scale DC-couple solar-battery hybrid project at Cunderdin (pictured above), which stores solar produced on site in its batteries, dodging negative prices in the middle of the day and injecting power into the grid in the evening peaks – often until midnight – when prices are higher.

Fronter says it has a similar strategy for Waroona. Solar battery hybrids are now emerging as a major contender to large scale wind projects because of their falling costs, shorter construction time, and fewer problems in obtaining planning approvals and social licence.

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