Huge WA wind project with massive 4,000 MWh battery seeks state planning approval

The proposed Twin Hills wind farm in Western Australia’s Mid West region has been referred for public comment by the government’s Environmental Protection Authority, featuring the country’s most powerful turbine and its biggest battery.

The project proposal, put forward by Wind Prospect, is for 93 wind turbines delivering capacity of up to 750 MW, with a co-located battery offering at least eight hours of storage and sized at 500 MW and 4,000 MWh.

That would make the wind component the biggest in the state, if built now, and the battery the biggest in the country. More wind farms are now bringing their own batteries on site, to boost reliability in the grid and store energy for high demand periods when prices are higher.

The turbines needed to meet that 750 MW capacity would be 8 MW each, bigger than the 7.8 MW turbines supplied by Envision for both the Nullagine and the Narrogin wind projects in W.A.

The project is to be located on predominantly cleared agricultural land approximately 30 km north-east of Eneabba and 260 km north of Perth. The proposal would include a total disturbance of up to 543.6 hectares including 17.14 hectares of native vegetation clearing

The project obtained approval under the federal EPBC process several months ago, although that application sought approval for up to 110 turbines and up to 930 MW.

“At this initial stage of the EIA process, comment is simply sought on whether or not the EPA should assess a proposal and, if so, what level of assessment is considered appropriate,” according to the EPA.

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