Large battery pipeline nudges 7GW in Australia, as functions for storage space multiply

• Australia has around seven gigawatts of battery storage projects at various stages in the advancement pipe, a new report has estimated, nearly 1GW of which is on track to be provided by 2024.

Estimates from Cornwall Insight Australia released on Thursday recommend there is currently just over 900MW-worth of dedicated or significantly progressed huge battery projects being developed around the country with one more 6GW-plus either proposed or in planning.

This is not entirely unusual. Australia did, nevertheless, mount the globe's initial as well as largest grid linked Tesla large battery at the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia and since-- as RenewEconomy editor Giles Parkinson composed here-- practically everybody "beyond the PM's office and also the government-owned Snowy Hydro" is taking the market very seriously.

Last month, the biggest huge battery in Australia, the largest in the southerly hemisphere was revealed by the Victoria federal government, Tesla as well as programmer Neoen, noting simply the most up to date of more than a lots huge battery projects to be officially introduced in the last few months, with much more in the pipe.

Still, as the Cornwall Insight analysis explains, 7GW of battery storage space is rather a whole lot-- and also absolutely far more than forecast by the Australian Energy Market Operator. (And it does not include the recommended 20GWh battery to choose the Sun Cable project in the Northern Territory.

" Even if we only assume that 10% of the predicted storage space will certainly make it to finished projects, that is still a total amount of ~ 1.5 GW of battery storage space that we can expect by 2024-- greater than 13x AEMO's projection in the Integrated System Plan," claimed principal specialist, Ben Cerini.

" The inquiry after that ends up being, given the size of the storage space pipe and also the current commitment to provide the largest battery in Australia of 300MW. Do we currently need to re-evaluate the quantity of storage space projected to be integrated in the NEM?"

In the listed below chart, Cornwall Insights shows the difference in between its battery storage projections for Australia and also the Central Case circumstance projected by the AEMO's ISP, although it notes that considering that the graph was created, AGL has actually introduced a further 200MW large battery project at its Loy Yang coal plant to be operational in 2023.

Cornwall also keeps in mind that the battery storage modelled by AEMO is based on grid dependability and also not the battery storage being created to supply various other grid services and also capitalise on various other income streams.

As RE has kept in mind, batteries have actually really promptly shown to be very versatile; able to do several different functions, consisting of raising ability on transmission web links, supplying emergency protection action, regularity control, synthetic inertia, as well as also merely as a storage device, billing sometimes of affordable price and discharging at times of peak need, when rates generally increase.

" To be fair," Cerini claims," [the ISP] does not take into consideration the ability of system services agreements to be able to underpin investment in battery storage space that permits batteries to after that contend in energy and secondary solution markets.

" But as we have actually seen, those that move quickly will be rewarded and also remain in the very best feasible placement to make use of new revenue streams when (not if) they show up."

That said, AEMO has actually been criticised prior to for its lack of vision on battery storage. In 2016, then-ACT environment preacher Simon Corbell banged remarks from the market driver that it would be 10-20 years till battery storage space would have an impact on grid stability and also support.

" It was a remarkably conservative as well as pessimistic view of an innovation that is revealing a fad of quick expense falls," Corbell claimed at the time. "And it highlights a few of the difficulties we deal with in the design of our power markets when that kind of presentation is being made to decision manufacturers at COAG degree."

The report finds that the state with the largest MW of proposed battery projects is Victoria, with greater than 4GW in the planning and growth pipe-- an amount that stands for almost half (more than 40%) of the state's current peak need.

New South Wales, meanwhile, has a smaller 1.3 GW in the pipeline, however Cornwall notes that this is "well on the way" to the 2.3 GW determined in the state government's NSW Roadmap.

" Our forecasts reveal that there is currently a strong pipeline for energy storage space across the NEM, in spite of the tough economics and also the consistently creating worth streams, which can be unpredictable," said Cerini.

" More battery storage will deliver much more system and supplementary services while additionally assisting throughout peak demand. Undervaluing the role of storage may have considerable effects for future projects."