Plans approved for biggest battery storage system in Victoria

Victoria is one step closer to adding a new “biggest battery” to its network, after a 240MW/480MWh project proposed by Maoneng for the Mornington Peninsula was cleared for development by the state government.

Australian solar and now storage developer, Maoneng, said on Wednesday that the $190 million Mornington battery energy storage system (BESS) had received development approval and was on track for completion in mid-2023.

The standalone BESS will be located next to AusNet’s existing Tyabb substation, about 67km east of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula, where Maoneng says is will cater to fluctuations in demand driven by seasonal tourism.

Maoneng says the Mornington battery will draw and store energy from the grid during off-peak periods and dispatch it back to the grid during times of peak demand, generating power for the equivalent of 40,000 average Australian homes.

Once built, the Mornington BESS is on track to assume the mantle of the biggest grid-connected battery in Victoria, surpassing Neoen’s 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery, near Geelong which kicked into full gear in the first week of December, 2021.

But it is unlikely to hold that title for long, with new and increasingly large storage projects cropping up in the state’s development pipeline on a regular basis. One of these, a massive hybrid renewables and storage project proposed last year by UK-based RES for near Stawell, is slated to include a 400MW/1200MWh big battery.

And just last month, Australia’s Syncline Energy unveiled plans for a 600MW, four-hour battery storage facility in Victoria, once again upping the ante over what might be the biggest battery project in the state, or even the country.

Syncline proposes the 600MW/2,400MWh Melton Renewable Energy Hub to be located next to the Sydenham terminal station owned and operated by network company Ausnet, where it will connect into the state’s main 500kV transmission backbone.

For the Mornington BESS, Maoneng says the next step is to lock in an engineering, procurement, and construction contractor – a decision the company hopes to announce in coming weeks.

“The Mornington BESS will be a vital piece of local infrastructure that will benefit the local  economy in several ways,” said Maoneng co-founder and CEO Morris Zhou, in a statement on Wednesday.

“It will help stabilise the network and manage periods of peak demand when local companies  and households really need reliable electricity.

“There are also commercial opportunities during construction, and more work on the supply  chain will begin soon as our contractor comes on board and begins the process of hiring  individuals, companies and equipment suppliers as the project gets up to speed.”

Maoneng’s Australian portfolio includes nearly 300MW of solar capacity from the Sunraysia Solar Farm in NSW and the Mugga Lane Solar Park in the ACT.

The company is also in the process of building more than 1,800MWh of utility-scale battery energy storage system projects across Australia, including the Gould Creek Battery Energy Storage System, north-east of Adelaide in South Australia.

That project, which secured state development approval in October last year, will be sized at a 225MW/450MWh, giving two hours storage and trumping the recently expanded Hornsdale Power Reserve – Australia’s original big battery – which is now rated at 150MW/194MWh.

Other recently announced big battery plans for Victoria include the Hazelwood Battery – a 150MW/150MWh facility being proposed by French energy giant Engie and Macquarie’s Green Investment Group at the site of the now closed brown coal generator.

Construction has already begun on that project, which will be built and maintained over a 20-year period by US-based Fluence, using – for the first time in Australia – its sixth-generation Gridstack product and its AI-enabled bidding system.

AGL has plans for a 200MW/800MWh battery at the site of its Loy Yang A brown coal generator, and Tilt (now owned by PowAR) is looking at a similar sized battery elsewhere in the Latrobe Valley, as is EnergyAustralia, which is talking of a 350MW/1,400MWh big battery to help replace the Yallourn generator.

See RenewEconomy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia for more details.