Victoria’s newest big battery project energised ahead of schedule

Victorian transmission company AusNet says it has successfully energy the feeder into the substation for the Rangebank battery project ahead of schedule.

The Rangebank battery will be sized at 200 MW and 400 MWh and is being developed by the Macquarie offshoot Eku Energy and energy giant Shell within the business park of the same name in Cranbourne in Melbourne’s east.

AusNet said in a LinkedIn post that the feeder bay at the Cranbourne Terminal Station will be used to connect the Rangebank battery to the grid, and the project is expected to be fully complete by the end of the year.

The Rangebank BESS will increase Victoria’s renewable energy hosting capacity and also provide essential system services as the state transitions away from coal in the next decade towards its target of 95 per cent renewables by 2035.

Eku has already built the 150 MW/150 MWh Hazelwood battery, located at the site of the now dismantled brown coal generator in the Latrobe Valley, and is also about to start construction of the 250 MW, 500 MWh Williamsdale battery on the outskirts of Canberra, to support the ACT’s plan to go all electric for homes, business and transport.

Shell also has off take agreements with the Riverina battery in south-west NSW, and has plans to build two 500 MW, 1,000 MWh batteries at Wellington in the central west and a Wallerawang, the site of another shuttered coal fired generator, near Lithgow.

The minority shareholder of the Rangebank battery is Perfection Private, which built the industrial park that hosts the project. It is being built, serviced, and maintained by Fluence.

The news of the energisation of the Rangebank battery comes as two major wind projects in Victoria, the first stage of the 1.3 GW Golden Plains wind farm and the 218 MW Ryan’s Corner wind farm, both entered the market operator’s grid management system in recent weeks.

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