Page 12 - AsiaElec Week 11 2023

AsiaElec BATTERIES AsiaElec

Battery storage in Australia

continues apace

AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN local utility firm Zen Energy has Market Operator (AEMO) who runs the local grid
agreed a deal to purchase a 2.5-hour battery stor- to use its service to help guarantee a stable level of
age site in the state of South Australia (SA). power at all times.
The project, acquired from local developer and According to the Zen Energy homepage, “Once
fellow Australian firm IPP RES, is currently forecast completed, it will provide dispatchable, fast-re-
to come online sometime prior to the end of 2024, sponse generation and load into the SA market,
according to reports. enabling more of the renewable energy generation
Named the Templers Battery Project, the 111- required to reduce South Australia’s carbon impact.”
MW facility is sited around 40 km north of central AEMO has previously claimed that the island
Adelaide, and will become Zen’s first such battery continent will require around 46 GW of storage by
storage facility. Few believe it will be the last. the middle of the century. The battery
Zen is currently active across much of the south- As such, with nowhere near that amount now in
east of Australia, with solar and wind projects across place, the need for rapid and urgent development is storage site
Victoria and South Australia, and solar-only pro- clear if Canberra is to put in place enough long-du-
jects in New South Wales, Queensland and Western ration energy storage by 2050. at Templers
Australia. Zen Energy CEO Anthony Garnaut said of the
The battery storage site at Templers has already deal that “storage plays a critical role in allowing has already
received the green light to link to local grid infra- more renewable energy into the grid. When it is received the
structure, with construction scheduled to start commissioned in late 2024, the Templers battery
soon. will have the most storage capacity of the batteries green light to
Commercial services linked to Australia’s in South Australia, and it will quickly be followed
National Energy Grid are expected to be fully up by bigger batteries supported by Zen and others.” link to local grid
and running by late next year. Garnaut went on to say that “at the rate we’re
Zen will be using the latest addition to its port- going, South Australia will be 100% well before infrastructure.
folio to help facilitate smooth energy delivery to its 2030, enabling the revitalisation of core industries
own existing customer base across South Australia and for Australia to evolve into a renewable energy
while also enabling the local Australian Energy superpower.”™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 11 15 •March•2023