Huge battery projects queue up for approval in world’s most intermittent grid

A slew of big new battery storage projects are queueing up for environmental approval in South Australia, which currently leads the world in the share of variable wind and solar in a gigawatt scale grid.

Wind and solar accounted for 70 per cent of local demand in the last 12 months, and 80 per cent over summer.

Remarkably, despite having limited transmission links to one state, Victoria, the state has little in the way of battery storage because most of its firming and backup capacity – in the form of gas – was built to support the coal generators that closed in late 2016.

That is starting to change as the gas generators get older and become more costly to maintain and operate, and as new inverter technology allows these big batteries to deliver the same grid services as the fossil fuel machines.

It is expected that the three big batteries currently in the state – the Hornsdale Power Reserve, Lake Bonney and Dalrymple North – will soon be joined by many more.

AGL’s 250MW/250MWh Torrens Island battery has finally secured its connection approval and is due to start charging up soon, and Vena Energy’s 41MW/41MWh Tailem Bend battery is also going through the commissioning process.

Neoen is building the 200MW/400MWh Blyth battery north of Adelaide, partly to meet its “renewables baseload” contract with BHP’s giant Olympic Dam mine, but there are many others also seeking approval.

In the past few weeks several more project referrals were announced for EPBC approval, including the Summerfield 240MW battery near Tepko, east of Adelaide, where a planned gas generator has been dumped, and a 270MW/1480MWh Tungkillo battery project located in the same area.

The Tungkillo battery, were it to go ahead as currently configured, would be the longest duration battery in the country, with more than five hours of storage. It is being developed by RES Australia.

The Summerfield battery project proposal tells its own story about the changing green energy transition. It was initially proposed as a 300MW gas station,  backed by a small 12MW solar farm and the battery component, and got approval in a blaze of publicity from local authorities in 2019.

Despite being described as “essential” to back up renewables, the gas plant plans have since been ditched, for obvious reasons relating to cost and emissions, and because the fossil fuel technology simply can no longer compete with wind, solar and storage.

There are a number of other battery projects in the pipeline, including GMR’s Gould Creek battery project, Amp Energy’s three battery project proposals at Robertstown, Port Pirie and Whyalla, and Neoen’s proposed big batteries at Goyder South and Crystal Brook.