Australia has everything battery storage needs, except the ability to make them at scale
Australia could have a strong battery manufacturing industry because of the sheer scale of demand, but not without taxpayer subsidies and only in niche areas, experts say.
Research launched at Parliament House recommends targeting the electricity grid’s needs and heavy vehicle batteries used in buses, mine haul trucks and on farms.
To make energy storage cheaper for households, the federal small-scale renewable energy scheme should support batteries, not just rooftop solar and solar hot water systems, the report says.
Further stoking demand, the so-called national capacity investment scheme for energy should be doubled from six gigawatts to 12GW by 2030 and 24GW by 2035.
Australia is at the leading edge of grid decarbonisation and the need for longer-duration storage is immediate, the report warned.
A sovereign battery manufacturing industry could create 44,000 jobs and $57 billion in GDP by 2035, with an injection of $2 billion in capital.
Australia is the only country in the world which has all the minerals required to make batteries, inverters and relevant components.
Australia could therefore feasibly grow from a ‘dig-and-ship’ approach to a ‘mine-and-make’ nation, mining and refining lithium and other minerals, then manufacturing batteries onshore.
Australia could support up to five giga-factories if it produced enough batteries for domestic energy storage and commercial EVs, according to the research.These factories alone would create 20,000 jobs and add $17 billion to the economy.