Australia is drenched in sunshine more often than not, which makes it a really perfect location for solar energy. That’s good. However as extra photo voltaic vitality will get added, it comes near overwhelming the grid with an abundance of renewable vitality through the noon hours whereas not being obtainable within the late afternoon and early night hours when demand for electrical energy highest. That’s dangerous. Neoen has an answer — large battery storage services that take in all of that electrical energy and ship it again to the grid later within the day.

The imbalance between provide and demand leads to what is thought within the trade because the “duck curve,” and, because the illustration above exhibits, authorities in Western Australia anticipate the imbalance to accentuate in coming years as extra photo voltaic electrical energy will get added, most of it from rooftop photo voltaic techniques.

The important thing to the success of renewable vitality is to seize most of it when it’s ample and make it obtainable to the grid when it’s wanted, a course of often known as time shifting. Western Australia is exclusive in that its electrical grid just isn’t interconnected with these in different Australian states or territories. Partly, that’s due to the big distances between Western Australia and the remainder of the nation, which imply Western Australia is by itself with regards to managing its grid.

Till now, Western Australia has relied totally on coal-fired thermal producing stations for the majority of its electrical energy, however as the price of renewable vitality continues to fall, these coal-powered services have gotten much less worthwhile. To assist take in the huge quantity of solar energy obtainable through the day, the Australian Vitality Market Operator (AEMO), on the request of the Western Australian Coordinator of Vitality, has accredited a proposal by Neoen to put in a 197 MW battery close to the city of Collie in Western Australia with a 4-hour discharge time.

In response to Neoen, the brand new facility will encompass 224 Tesla Megapack 2XL models. It’s the first part of a 1 GW/4 GWh mission first proposed in December of 2022. The battery can be situated on land of the Wilman folks of the Bibbulmun nation within the South West area of Western Australia. It’s going to connect with Western Energy’s Shotts Terminal substation, which is a part of the South-West Interconnected System.

The Collie Battery is Neoen’s sixth massive battery in Australia, bringing its whole Australian storage property to over 1.1 GW in operation or beneath building, and additional cementing its place because the nation’s main developer, proprietor, and operator of batteries. It already owns and operates the 300 MW/450 MWh Victorian Huge Battery in Geelong and the 150 MW/193.5 MWh Hornsdale Energy Reserve in South Australia. Its 100 MW/200 MWh Capital Battery, 200 MW/400 MWh Blyth Battery, and 200 MW/400 MWh Western Downs Battery are all presently beneath building.

A part of the impetus for the brand new battery in Western Australia is that state’s curiosity in offering renewable vitality to new industries supplying inexperienced hydrogen and different low-carbon merchandise to Australia and the world. Western Australia just lately issued a brand new demand forecast that anticipates the necessity for greater than 50 GW of latest wind, photo voltaic, and storage to fulfill these rising calls for for zero-carbon vitality.

The state’s extra speedy focus, nevertheless, is to supply the required firming capability to permit coal to exit and to assist the rising share of rooftop photo voltaic in Western Australia, which is the world’s largest remoted grid and has no capacity to import or export energy.

Neoen’s Western Australia head Nathan Ling mentioned the corporate recognized a necessity for battery storage a number of years in the past. “I believe this demonstrates that markets are altering as we’re changing into much less reliant on fossil gasoline era and extra on renewables,” Ling informed RenewEconomy. “The providers from batteries are additionally altering away from the frequency and ancillary providers which batteries will proceed to supply, and this one will do the identical, but additionally offering extra of these firming providers by with the ability to agency up renewables and shift era to when it’s most wanted.”

Neoen says it has been engaged on the mission since 2021, and has already given a discover to proceed to building firm UGL and to Tesla, which is able to provide 224 of its Tesla 2XL Megapacks. The primary stage can be sized barely bigger than the AEMO contract, and the power has planning approval for a complete of 1GW/4GWh of battery storage. The Collie battery would be the first 4-hour battery to be constructed by Neoen, and its sixth massive standalone battery general in Australia. It additionally owns a number of massive wind and photo voltaic tasks.

“That is an thrilling time for Neoen as it’s our first main mission in WA, and it additionally means we now have a giant battery in 5 of the six Australian states,” Louis de Sambucy, the pinnacle of Neoen Australia, mentioned in an announcement. “With our rising staff in Perth and a robust pipeline of tasks, we look ahead to taking part in an more and more important position within the state’s speedy decarbonization.”

“Renewable vitality infrastructure, equivalent to Neoen’s massive battery, is a key issue within the attraction of latest, modern and sustainable industries that can cement Collie’s place as an vital industrial hub, offering worthwhile employment alternatives for generations to return,” mentioned Collie shire president Sarah Stanley.

The Takeaway

Within the absence of sufficient battery storage, the renewable vitality revolution in Western Australia would destabilize that state’s utility grid for a big time period most days. Till now, offering ancillary providers like voltage and frequency stabilization has been on the coronary heart of the enterprise case for such massive battery storage tasks, however now their time shifting functionality is taking up a extra distinguished position.

Neoen mentioned in a separate announcement that it’s growing its forecast working earnings in FY 2025 to greater than €700 million from the €600 million beforehand suggested only a month in the past. That is a rise of $160 million a 12 months, and whereas Neoen just isn’t saying that each one of that improve in income is attributable to this new battery contract, RenewEconomy suggests it can account for a big a part of the rise.

Australia has lengthy relied on coal for its electrical energy, with one former minister crowing that the nation has sufficient coal to energy the world for a thousand years. In fact, if that occurred, there could be no want for electrical energy in any respect as a result of only a few people could be left alive to devour it.

Featured picture courtesy of Synergy