Zen Energy unveils big battery plans, with a first project ready to go on its home turf

Ross Garnaut-led retailer Zen Energy has announced plans to develop its first big battery, after buying up a 111MW/270MWh project near Gawler in South Australia.

Zen said on Thursday it had acquired the more than $200 million Templers Battery Project from RES, marking the latest addition to “baseload renewables” portfolio.

“We are building our first utility-scale battery in South Australia, the state where it all began for Zen,” said Zen CEO Anthony Garnaut.

Zen says the project, located around 60km north of Adelaide, has received approval to connect to the grid, with RES having run an efficient Generation Performance Standards (GPS) approval process in partnership with AEMO and ElectraNet.

The Templers big battery is on track to complete financing arrangements in coming months, with construction planned to commence in the second half of 2023.

Zen says it expects the project to take around 15 months to build and that the big battery will be fully energised by the end of 2024.

The company plans to use the Templers battery to support the delivery of energy to its existing South Australia-based customers, as well as for grid-stability services for the wider National Electricity Market.

“Storage plays a critical role in allowing more renewable energy into the grid,” said Garnaut in a statement.

“When it is commissioned in late 2024, the Templers battery will have the most storage capacity of the batteries in South Australia, and it will quickly be followed by bigger batteries supported by Zen and others.

“At the rate we’re going, South Australia will be 100% well before 2030, enabling the revitalisation of core industries and for Australia to evolve into a renewable energy Superpower.”

Zen started its journey to supply cheap “basload renewables” to Australian businesses back in late 2017, when it obtained a licence to retail electricity, with a focus on users with demand of more than 160MWh per annum.

Last year, in releasing its first ESG report, Zen revealed plans to increase the amount of electricity sold each year from 1 terawatt-hour to 10TWh by 2025, which would give it a 5 per cent share of the National Electricity Market, versus just over 0.5 per cent now.

“How do we get from 1TWh of load contracted today to 10TWh by 2025? We start by writing a lot of PPAs (power purchase agreements), with the priority on solar and battery storage,”Anthony Garnaut said at the time.

The previous September, Zen signed a 10-year deal with renewables giant Acciona Energía’s Waubra wind farm northwest of Ballarat in Victoria for roughly 200,000MWh a year.

The Waubra offtake deal followed an earlier deal with the 87MW Tailem Bend 2 solar farm, in partnership with the SA Chamber of Mines and Energy (SACOME).

Zen split from entrepreneur Sanjeev Gupta’s SIMEC group of companies in 2020, allowing it to focus on building its retail business. It has contracted to supply a range of customers including the South Australian government, CSIRO, and the Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils.

In a statement this week, Anthony Garnuat praised the team at RES for its “fantastic job” in guiding the Templers project through its last round of approvals.

“We are proud that the Templers project will be able to play a critical role in providing a secure and stable energy supply for the Australian electricity market into the future,” responded Res Australia CEO Matt Rebbeck.

“RES is excited to have provided development services to ZEN on the final development items and continuing discussions to provide support with construction and asset management arrangements.”