Massive “world-leading” 8 hour solar battery array to reboot Australian manufacturing
The Australian infrastructure investor Quinbrook has unveiled plans for a series of massive eight-hour solar batteries that they say will offer Australia the best chance to protect Australian manufacturing.
The plans would involve three batteries in Queensland – in Brisbane and the industrial centres of Gladstone and Townsville – and possibly two in NSW.
Together, they would comprise 3 gigawatts and 24 gigawatt hours of storage capacity, with two thirds of it in the sunshine state, and a further gigawatt and 8 GWh in NSW.
Quinbrook co-founder and managing partner David Scaysbrook says the plan to build large scale solar farms with eight hour batteries will get the country one step closer to the “holy grail” of 24/7 renewable power.
In Gladstone, one obvious customer for a project of this scale – Rio Tinto – is searching for a storage option to back up its wind and solar plans for the Boyne Island smelter and Yarwun refinery.
The Miriam Vale renewable hub could also provide the renewables to support plans for a green iron industry in Gladstone.
At Townsville, the paired solar farms and eight-hour batteries would also supply low cost power to support Quinbrook's $8Bn plan for the manufacture of silicon, a core component of the solar PV industry.
Quinbrook believes other manufacturing industries could be lured to Australia by the attraction of low cost reliable green power, as is happening in South Australia.
NSW has already agreed underwritten contracts for five eight-hour battery projects as part of its efforts to build storage capacity to replace coal.
Quinbrook has invested more than $10Bn of equity in more than 40 GW of energy infrastructure assets, including large four hour batteries in the US and the UK, as well as wind, solar and other technologies.