NSW begins tender process for Waratah battery that will help replace biggest coal plant

The NSW state government has begun the first stages of the tender process for the 700MW Waratah “network” battery that will help fill in the gap created by the fast-tracked closure of the country’s biggest coal generator.

The so called Waratah Super Battery, likely to have storage capacity of around two hours, and be located on the Central Coast, was part of the government’s main response to news last month that Origin Energy had decided to close the 2,880MW Eraring coal plant seven years early in 2025.

The main role of the Waratah battery will be to support the grid and maximise the capacity of the main transmission lines to allow more electricity to flow from generators to customers in the main load centres of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.

It will be the largest standby network battery in the Southern Hemisphere.

The new 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery, located near Geelong (and pictured above), is contracted to do a similar service, but only for part of its capacity and for just the key summer months when it maximises the capacity of the main link between NSW and Victoria to cope with high demand.

The Waratah battery is also separate to another planned big battery, the Eraring battery, that will be built by Origin itself. That will be sized at up to 700MW with four hours storage, or 2,800MWh, with a focus on storage, arbitrage and grid services markets. The first stage is likely to be smaller.

The NSW government announced on Thursday that it will hold an open forum at the end of the month (March 31) to outline more details about the planned battery and the tender process that will follow.

The state government hopes to award the contract for the battery by November to ensure that the facility is built on time. Registrations of interest are due on April 1, more detailed expressions of interest on May 2, and invitations to tender will be sent out in June.

EnergyCo, which is managing the NSW government’s renewable infrastructure plan that is designed to install sufficient renewable and storage capacity to replace all of the state’s coal generators within a decade if necessary, says the Waratah battery process will be different to those for the renewable energy zones.

The REZ process, likely to cover at least five different renewable energy zones, seeks a minimum of 12GW of wind and solar, and its storage focus is on long duration storage that can be provided by technologies such as pumped hydro.

“This process is distinct from, and separate to, the various REZ procurement processes that EnergyCo is currently undertaking,” EnergyCo said.

See also: RenewEconomy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia