Sodium-sulfur battery tests long duration energy storage in Australian first pilot

A long duration sodium-sulfur battery energy storage system has been installed at a nickel-copper-cobalt mine in Western Australia’s Fraser Range, to test the technology’s mettle in a remote mining environment – and marking an Australian first.

The Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) said on Monday that the pilot would trial the sodium-sulfur battery technology co-developed by BASF Stationary Energy Storage (BSES) and NGK Insulators.

The sodium-sulfur battery, topped with solar panels, offers just under six hours of storage capacity and has already been in operation at the mine site for just over one month.

The Nova nickel, copper and cobalt mine is an underground mine operated by IGO Ltd in the Fraser Range, around 360km southeast of Kalgoorlie on the lands of the traditional Ngadju People.

IGO has already installed solar at the mine site, and in a project led by Zenith Energy last year added a further 10MW to take the total PV generation capacity to 35MW, and has invested in a 10MWh battery energy storage system to replace the diesel back-up.

At the time, IGO said the combined solar and battery storage system would ultimately enable Nova to run 100% on renewable energy in an ‘engines-off’ mode for nine consecutive hours over summer and spring.

Matt Dusci, IGO’s acting CEO, said this week that the separate sodium sulfur battery trial was part of the company’s commitment to do what it can to accelerate the mining industry’s response to climate change.

“The BASF NAS battery trial at our Nova Operation is an important way to field test the suitability of this unique technology in a mining environment and how this will contribute to a clean energy future,” Dusci said.

While this is believed to be the first sodium sulfur battery installation of its kind in Australia, BASF says 250 NAS battery sites across the world are already in operation, with a total storage capacity of approximately 5GWh.

“The NAS battery technology is mature and has been successfully installed and operated at over 250 sites worldwide over the past 20 years,” said FBICRC chief Shannon O’Rourke in a statement on Monday.

“These field deployments help build market confidence, train our workforce and build capability in the contracting community.

“We thank both BASF and IGO for their generous commitment to cooperative research, which enables benefits to flow to Australia as a whole.”

The Nova battery’s performance will be assessed by the Queensland University of Technology operated National Battery Testing Centre, and the University of Western Australia.