ING picks up finance for Wandoan, biggest battery project in Queensland

ING Australia says it will financing the Wandoan big battery in Queensland, the biggest project of its type in Queensland and the first battery project that it has financed in Australia.

The 100MW and 150MWh Wandoan battery energy storage system (BESS) is being developed by Vena Energy Australia and will be operated under a 15-year contract by major energy utility AGL – one of a number of big battery projects that it is building or contracting around the country’s main grid.

Th $120 million battery is due to come into operation next year and is the first part of a major solar and battery storage hub being planned for the Wandoan South project, where Vena plans to build up to 650MW of large scale solar and 450MW of battery storage capacity.

Vena also owns and operates the 95 MW Tailem Bend solar project in South Australia which is contracted to Snowy hydro and has a pipeline of more than 2.5 gigawatts of renewable energy projects across the country, including Wandoan South.

ING did not reveal any details about the size of its funding support, saying the terms and scope of the financing were commercial in confidence.

“ING has a strong commitment to financing the Australian energy sector and to helping clients in transitioning to a lower carbon future,” its head of wholesale banking Charles Ho said in a statement, adding that ING has committed more than A$1.2 billion to green financing and renewable projects in Australia.”

“The financing of the Wandoan South BESS marks ING’s first standalone battery project financing in the Asia Pacific region, and is a testament of our efforts to work with our clients to commercially deploy new technologies such as BESS, which we believe are essential to enable the energy transition,” ING global head of energy, Michiel de Haan said.