Gravity storage pioneer lands another big battery contract in Australia

Energy Vault, a US-listed company probably best known for its work on gravity storage technology, has secured another major contract for a more conventional big battery project in Australia, this time with the Victoria-government owned State Electricity Commission.

The contract to build and operate the 100 MW/200 MWh battery next to a 119 MW solar farm at Horsham follows a major coup in securing a contract for a 400 MWh big battery capacity at Acen Renewables’ New England solar farm in NSW, the largest in the country.

The SEC took control of the Horsham project, now known as the SEC Renewable Energy Park – Horsham, last year in a surprise move. The Horsham project had been named as one of the winners of the state government’s VRET2 auction in 2022, but had not been developed.

It will now be completed in 2027, rather than the original 2025 deadline – and the SEC says pre construction work began this week. The battery component of the hybrid project has been doubled from the original plan, and the value of the project is now put at $370 million.

The SEC and Energy Vault said in a joint statement that the battery will feature grid forming technology and will provide firm, dispatchable power to meet peak demand periods .

SEC says Energy Vault was chosen because of its innovative technology and unique AC-couple and DC-couple configurations.

“We are pleased to further expand our footprint of energy storage systems in the dynamic and rapidly growing Australian market and work with SEC on this innovative hybrid project architecture,” said Robert Piconi, the chairman and CEO of Energy Vault.

“As our first government collaboration, this publicly-owned project is well-aligned with our mission to accelerate the clean energy transition through sustainable and efficient energy storage solutions and will play a pivotal role in ensuring the availability of renewable energy.”

Energy Vault is yet to post a profit, and in November reported a quarterly net loss of $US26 million, and a nine month net loss of $US79 million, on revenue of just $US12 million.

There is some skepticism about the commerciality of its gravity storage projects, but it has completed the construction of several big battery storage projects, most recently in Texas and Nevada.

Australia also has become one of its strongest markets, with contracts amounting to more than 2 GWh gigawatt hours, even before the announcement of this contract.

Last year, on top of the deal with Acen Renewables, it also announced an agreement to build a 1,000 MWh battery at Enervest’s Stoney Creek project in north-west NSW and it has previously announced another 1,000 MWh contract for the early stage Meadow Creek battery in Victoria.

In its third quarter report last November, it alluded to an unnamed 200 MWh contract in Australia, and the Horsham deal could very well be that.

“We’re looking forward to working with Energy Vault on the delivery and integration of the battery storage system at the SEC Renewable Energy Park – Horsham,” said SEC CEO Chris Miller. “This project demonstrates SEC’s ongoing efforts to drive Victoria’s transition to renewables.”

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