The Western Australian state government and its state owned generation company Synergy have celebrated the installation of all 640 battery packs at the Collie battery, which at 2 gigawatt hours will be one of the biggest in the country.
The Collie battery is being built next to the last of the state’s coal fired generators that are due to exit the grid by the end of the decade, and if completed now the 500 MW, 2,000 MWh would be the biggest in the country.
However, by the time it is switched on and in full operation in time for next summer, the Collie battery will have been trumped in size by another Collie battery being built up the road by French-based Neoen, which is being sized at 540 MW and 2240 MWh over two stages.
The first stage of Neoen’s battery is already in operation and the second is due to commissioned around the middle of the year.
“When we started this project, we said it was the biggest in Australia,” state premier Roger Cook told reporters at a media event at the site on Wednesday. “By the time we finish it, it won’t even be the biggest in Collie .“
The addition of the two 500 MW plus batteries will help a dramatic reshape of the Western Australia grid, which is regarded as the world’s largest isolated grid, already with wind and solar peaks of more than 80 per cent of demand.
The two Collie batteries are the biggest of a handful of batteries initially contracted to soak up rooftop solar in the middle of the day and inject it back into the grid in the evening peak.
The W.A. grid is already seeing battery storage playing a prominent role in the evening peak, with its share of output peaking at 17.6 per cent just in the last three days. (See graph above).
The addition of the two Collie batteries could see battery storage grab a share of more than 50 per cent of the evening peak, heralding a reshaping of the grid from its historical dependence on fossil fuel baseload power sources.
Cook and newly appointed energy minister Amber-Jade Sanderson attended the ceremony at Collie, along with prime minister Anthony Albanese and federal energy minister Chris Bowen, who were campaigning in Collie to highlight the folly of the federal Coalition’s nuclear power plans, which include a nuclear plant in the town.
“My government is diversifying our economy for the future, positioning WA at the forefront of the clean energy transition and creating skilled local jobs for the future,” Cook said in a statement.
“We are investing more than $5.7 billion towards renewable energy generation, transmission and storage.” Critics, however, say that while the state government has moved quickly on battery storage, it is falling behind on the need for bulk power provided by large scale wind and solar.
