Huge 8,000 MWh battery proposed for new major wind and solar hub in Barnaby’s back yard

Plans to add a big battery energy storage system (BESS) of up to 8,000 megawatt-hours next to a huge wind farm in the back yard of federal National Party MP and chief renewables detractor Barnaby Joyce have joined the queue for environmental approval.

The Ace Power project proposes to develop an up to 1,000 MW BESS, with between four and eight hours of energy storage, at Salisbury Plains in New South Wales, within the proposed boundaries of the state’s New England Renewable Energy Zone (REZ).

The big battery is being proposed as part of the hybrid renewables Hillview Energy Hub, which would include a 200–300 megawatt (MW) wind farm and an as-yet undefined large-scale solar farm, and installed around 12 km south-east of Uralla.

Referral documents published on the federal government’s EPBC portal say the Hillview Eastern Hub Firming Battery project will be located around 11 km south-east of Uralla, adjacent to the East Hub substation being proposed by the NSW government’s EnergyCo.

The documents say preliminary investigations for the BESS are looking at a project area of 102.59 hectares, with the development corridor contained to a roughly 68.57 hectare area within the project area.

It’s no small irony that the electorate of one of Australia’s most ardent anti-renewables politicians is broadly viewed as the most valuable patch of land in Australia for solar and wind – capable of delivering half the country’s electricity needs, according to a recent ANU study. 

Ace Power in November last year submitted for approval its plans for the wind component of the Hillview Hub, shooting for a share of the 8GW the highly coveted New England REZ is expected to host, according to EnergyCo.

The Hillview site is east of Kentucky, a town that fought hard for years against one of the only two other surviving wind farm proposals in the area, Neoen’s Thunderbolt.

To the north is the site of Ark Energy’s shelved 340 MW Doughboy wind farm, cancelled after landowners apparently changed their minds about hosting the project. 

Vestas’ giant 730 MW Winterbourne wind farm to the east has been the subject of vociferous and sometime unhinged attacks by local MP Barnaby Joyce and his wife Vicky Campion. The developer recently made a series of changes to the design to mitigate the impact.

And in February, a 320 megawatt (MW) solar farm and 300MW/780MWh big battery proposed by TotalEnergies for a site south of Tamworth was given the final all clear to go ahead, despite more than 100 public objections sending it to the Independent Planning Commission.

See Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia for more information.

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