As recently as 2018, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull seemed determined to steer Australia’s energy debate into a battle between his own vanity project, Snowy 2.0, and battery storage.
Flash forward to 2026, and the renewable energy outfit owned by the former Coalition leader and his wife Lucy is seeking to co-develop a new giga-scale battery on the outskirts of Melbourne, to add it its current portfolio of two pumped hydro storage proposals.
The 290 megawatt (MW), 1.16 gigawatt-hour (GWh) Middle Hut battery is just outside the suburb of Doreen, the state capital’s last outpost to the north-west before farmland and mountains take over.
Developers Turnbull Renewables and BZ Renewables are yet to lodge any planning documents for the project, which according to project tracker Renewmap has been on the market operator’s radar since April 2025.
The Nillumbik shire council said it expects a planning application to be lodged this month, in a reminder to locals that it won’t have the final say over the development but will make a submission to the process.
“The site is located in the Green Wedge Zone, is partially affected by Environmental Significance Overlay Schedule 1 (ESO1), and is within a designated bushfire prone area and an area of aboriginal cultural heritage sensitivity,” the council said.
“Council has not formed a position on the proposal at this stage.
“Any submission from Council would be based on an assessment of the application and supporting technical reports once they are formally referred to Council.”
The $500 million project is expected to be operational around 2029, according to the project website.
The plan is to connect to either the 300 kilovolt (kV) South Morang to Dederang transmission line, or the 220 kV Eilden to Thomastown line.
Vicgrid is planning to upgrade the latter as part of the VNI West project, in order to handle the extra electricity needed from New South Wales (NSW) once the Yallourn coal power stations closes in 2028.
The grid manager’s annual plan last year says that line is a weak point that will need upgrading once the state needs to draw more power from NSW to even out the 1.45 GW lost from the southern Gippsland region.
The shift into battery storage is the first project taken on by the Turnbulls after selling the two NSW pumped hydro projects it was working on to AGL last year.
The former prime minister and former Sydney mayor launched Turnbull Renewables in 2023, and started out developing the 770 MW, 10 hour Glenbawn and 623 MW, 10 hour Glennies Creek projects in the Hunter Valley.
BZ Renewables has another battery project in development, 400 MW / 1600 MWh Glenrowan BESS located approximately 9km south-west of Glenrowan and 5km north-east of Winton, within the Rural City of Benalla. This is another co-development, with Akaysha Energy.
BZ Renewables is developing one other battery, this time in the hotbed of Glenrowan with battery giant Akaysha Energy.
The 500 MW, 1.6 GW Glenrowan battery is in the middle of 715 MW of operating, under construction and proposed solar farms and projects in the central Victoria region.
Protest groups and the local One Nation member have turned the area into a cause celebre, but Renew Economy understands the actual opposition in the area is limited to a small number of individuals.
