South Australia is to get a second large-scale battery to bolster the state’s power grid security in in a project valued at around AUD30m ($23.6m).
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing up to AUD12m ($9.5m) in funding for power company ElectraNet to build the 30MW/8MWh lithium-ion battery at the Dalrymple substation north of Yorketown.
The battery will be leased to an energy retailer and is expected to be operational by next February— late summer in Australia when electricity demand typically peaks.
South Australia no longer has any coal-fired power, and gets about 40% of its electricity from wind farms, ARENA said. “With expensive natural gas-fired plants responsible for much of the recent surge in power bills due to inflated export prices, attention has turned to new, cheaper ways to support variable generation.“
The development follows the first phase of a study into the potential benefits of energy storage and utility-scale batteries for South Australia.
Phase two includes building the battery, which the state government said will supply a “fast frequency response to help balance the electricity network”, reduce network operating constraints and “keep the lights on in the Dalrymple service area during a loss of supply, by working together with the existing 90MW Wattle Point wind farm and rooftop solar PV systems in a microgrid”.
South Australia suffered a state-wide blackout in September last year, prompting authorities to review grid security.
Last July, the state signed a deal for Tesla to deliver the world’s largest lithium-ion battery— a 100MW/129MWh Powerpack system to be paired with French utility Neoen’s Hornsdale wind farm near Jamestown.
Earlier this month, it was announced that a 150MW solar thermal power plant with eight hours of molten salt energy storage would also be built in South Australia.