One of Australia’s largest network operators, Essential Energy, is delving deeper into battery storage with the installation of a 2 megawatt hour (MWh) system near Port Macquarie – said to be a first for Essential’s New South Wales grid.
AGL is building the network-connected battery in the Sovereign Hills area in NSW to manage the huge uptake in rooftop solar and allow the state government-owned company to avoid building out new network infrastructure.
Port Macquarie has a higher-than-average number of rooftop solar systems installed at 1004 watts per person in the area compared to 808 watts for the Australian average, according to data from SolarQuotes.
The town has more than 8,782 small-scale systems as at 31 December 2022, which the data provider says could conservatively generate some 196,811 kWh of energy a day or enough to power 12,301 homes.
The new battery will connect to an 11 kV high voltage distribution wire on the Essential Energy network and provide services around voltage regulation, frequency stabilisation frequency and reduce pressure on the network.
The Sovereign Hills battery will be the first of a series of battery installations across the Essential Energy network, says CEO John Cleland.
“Our first grid-scale battery trial will provide learnings that will lead to further deployment of the technology, supporting the energy transition of regional, rural and remote NSW,” he said.
“AGL’s extensive technological capability enables us to proceed with these solutions under the regulatory framework and deliver effective network solutions to the local community.”
RenewEconomy is seeking comment from Essential Energy.
Moving into community batteries
The Port Macquarie battery is not Essential Energy’s first foray into non-traditional poles-and-wires infrastructure.
The company started investigating standalone solar, battery and diesel backup systems in 2018 for areas in NSW and Queensland before accelerating the concept following the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20.
Late last year Essential Energy began an 18 month trial of a micro-grid battery that uses a more unusual renewable hydrogen system to power a heritage cottage in the Myall Lakes National Park. The idea is to create a system that doesn’t need any fossil fuel backup at all using a system of 23kW solar panels, a lithium-ion battery, hydrogen electrolysers and fuel cells and hydrogen storage of up to 20 days (425 kilowatt hours).
These kinds of standalone power systems (SAPS) are becoming more popular among distributed network service providers (DNSPs) looking for ways to provide remote communities with more reliable power without the costly infrastructure to maintain.
But community batteries operated by monopoly DNSPs could become more common throughout energy networks, following a controversial rule change last week that allows them to own and operate community batteries and participate in the federal government’s $224 million funding initiative for these.
It’s a measure that critics say will give monopoly DNSPs too much power in a market that is best served by third parties.
Managing rooftop generation
Port Macquarie, near where Essential’s latest energy storage project sits, is ringed by big battery developments that range from proposal through to under-construction stages which are closer to renewable energy developments, according to RenewEconomy’s big battery storage map of Australia.
This ring begins almost 200km south at Newcastle and swings out towards Tamworth and heads north. The new Sovereign Hills battery will be one of the first designed to deal with the pressures of rooftop generation in the area, rather than storage of large-scale generation and broader grid services.
Essential Energy is AGL’s first energy distributor to ask it to supply a grid-scale battery, but the power retailer has had a big battery plan since 2020 with a goal to install 850MW of energy storage by 2024.
It began powering up the $180 million, 250MW/1000MWh Torrens Island battery in November last year, as a replacement for its ageing pseudonymous gas plant, and has plans for a battery replacement for the Loy Yang A coal power plant, a 500MW/ 2GWh battery to replace the Liddell coal power plant, and a 50MW/50MWh facility in Broken Hill.
The new Port Macquarie battery will be part of AGL’s virtual power plant project, says AGL chief customer officer Jo Egan.
RenewEconomy is seeking comment from AGL.
