Origin taps into revenues from the first stages of the two biggest battery projects in Australia

Australia’s biggest energy utility, Origin Energy, says it is now tapping into revenues from the newly completed first stages of the two biggest battery projects currently under development in Australia.

Origin has already announced that the first stage of the Eraring battery, being built at the site of the country’s largest coal generator, has been completed on time and on budget.

Now it says that its revenues from its tolling arrangement with the Supernode battery, in Queensland, have also started to flow – a significant milestone for its albeit delayed transition from coal giant to a portfolio of renewables, storage and other dispatchable capacity.

The Eraring and Supernode batteries are competing for the title as the biggest project in Australia, with both announcing new additions in recent months because of the falling cost of battery storage, and the growing need for longer duration batteries to meet demand in the evening peaks.

The Eraring battery will now be sized at  700 MW and 3,170 MWh when complete, with the first 460 MW, 1770 MWh stage already complete.

The first 250 MW, 525 MWh stage of the Supernode battery, owned by Quinbrook Infrastructure, is now also on line, and that battery project is committed to three stages totalling 760 MW and 3,070 MWh, although Quinbrook has also flagged a further expansion that could take it close to 1,000 MW and 5,000 MWh.

See: Australia’s 10 biggest battery storage projects – and what they are paid to do

Origin has a tolling arrangement in place for 500 MW of the capacity from Supernode. It is also building a 300 MW, 650 MWh battery at the site of its Mortlake gas generator in Victoria, which is also approaching completion.

“In Energy Markets, the business has continued to perform well and we achieved the milestone of the first stage of the Eraring large-scale battery coming online on time and within budget,” Origin CEO Frank Calabria said in a statement on Friday.

“We recently approved a fourth stage of the Eraring battery to extend the stage two dispatch duration to cover evening peak demand, which forms part of our broader commitment to build a portfolio of 1.7 GW of owned and tolled batteries.”

Origin had flagged an early closure for the 2.88 GW Eraring coal generator in August, 2025, but that has now been delayed twice – to April, 2029 – ostensibly due to the lack of replacement wind and solar, and then because of a forecast lack of “system strength” in the NSW grid identified by the market operator.

Like other big utilities, Origin has done little to bring new wind and solar capacity online before the long-announced closure of Eraring, with its 1.45 GW Yanco Delta wind project in the south-west NSW not likely to begin construction anytime soon.

• Origin said electricity sales volumes in the December quarter declined by 3 per cent on the prior corresponding quarter, largely driven by a reduction in business volumes. It said gas volumes declined by 6 per cent , primarily due to lower trading volumes and lower demand from generation.

See Renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia for more information.

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