Western Australia’s very own Big Battery – at least, the first and largest yet to be installed on the state’s grid – has been dispatched to its destination in Kalbarri, where it will become the centrepiece of a solar and wind microgrid that promises to deliver much improved reliability than the local grid.
W.A.’s government-owned network operator Western Power said last week that the 5MW/2MWh battery had taken nearly a full day to load onto the trucks for transport, owing to its size of 25 metres long and 5m wide, and weight of 60 tonnes.
The battery will join a wind and solar micro-grid that Western Power hopes will boost reliability for Kalbarri, a resort town on the W.A. coast that suffers frequent outages because of its dependence on a wobbly link with centralised generation further south.
The 33kV line connecting Kalbarri, 500km north of Perth, to the rest of the grid is often affected by storms, wind-borne sea salt and sand, and can suffer extended outages.
In a statement last week, Western Power said the battery would be a key part of the microgrid’s design, supplying a minimum of 2MWh at any time when there was a network outage.
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Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
