Third battery project seeks approval in Collie, with a solar farm, even as coal mine subsidies extended

A third battery project proposed for the town of Collie in Western Australia has entered the federal government’s environmental approval queue ,which would see the construction of a 66-megawatt (MW) solar farm combined with a 200 MW battery energy storage system (BESS).

Collie remains the heart of the state’s declining coal industry, but it is also quickly becoming a hub for renewable energy development, in particular big batteries.

Collie is already home to Australia’s biggest battery, the 560 MW/2,240 megawatt-hours (MWh) Collie BESS developed by Neoen, as well as the 500 MW/2,000 MWh battery facility currently being commissioned by Synergy.

But developers are not done with Collie just yet, with a third project officially entering this week its two-week public comment period under the federal government’s environmental approval process, the EPBC.

Proposed by WA based developers Palmer Renewable Energy, an arm of property investment company Hesperia, the Collie solar PV and BESS project will consist of 66 MW of solar and 200 MW of storage, with the storage duration yet to be specified.

The project secured state development approval in August, and will now progress through the EPBC. Public comments can be submitted through to February 3.

If approved, the project would sit across the road from Neoen’s Collie BESS and consist of a solar farm, battery system, and substation, connecting via a 2-kilometre-long 330 kV underground cable to the Western Power Palmer Terminal Station currently under construction.

The project is expected to have a limited impact on the environment, and the transmission cable will be constructed using horizontal directional drilling to avoid further environmental disturbance.

In line with the local council’s planning strategy, the project does not impinge on any area identified as ‘agricultural priority management area’ and is not considered significant in terms of rural land use.

Its proximity not only to other battery storage systems but also to existing Western Power energy infrastructure is also hoped to be a tick in its favour.

This week, the W.A. state government announced a backflip on subsidies for the privately-owned Griffin coal mine, a key supplier to the town’s remaining generators. It had previously promised to end the subsidies this year, but has now announced a five-year extension.

It has already spent more than $300 million supporting the loss making mine, but has not revealed how much has been set aside for the latest extension.

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