Neoen Commits To Building 600 MWh Battery In Victoria

Neoen is the French energy company that operates the Tesla Hornsdale grid-scale battery in South Australia. To say that installation has been a huge commercial success is a gross understatement. Now Neoen says it will construct another grid-scale battery in Geeling, a city on the west side of Port Phillip Bay west of Melbourne.

The new installation will be rated at 600 MW, according to PV Magazine. Since no duration has been supplied, consider the new facility to be 600 MW/600MWh unless information to the contrary emerges later. The projected cost of the storage project is AUD 300 million or US $185.5 million.

The project will be located at the Moorabool terminal station and will potentially feature Tesla batteries. “While Tesla may not be the final equipment provider selected for the project their equipment is considered to be representative for a battery energy storage system of this size,” Neoen said in its construction application for what has been termed the “Victoria Big Battery.”

The new battery will provide fast frequency response services to the National Electricity Market and serve as a reserve to augment power supplies in Victoria, while also providing improved grid reliability, the company said in its application. “Such energy storage facilities can reduce spot price volatility and protect the grid from network disturbances thus improving reliability and potentially reducing power costs,” the company added.

The Hornsdale battery has been responsible for the 56% increase in revenue Neoen realized in the first quarter of last year. In its first year of operation, the Tesla Big Battery saved almost AUD 40 million in grid-stabilization costs. But more than the money, it proved to Australians that grid storage was a viable means of stabilizing the country’s electrical grid.

Putting the new battery in the state of Victoria is no accident. Despite the head in the sand intransigence of the national government let by climate change denier Scott Morrison, the government of Victoria is committed to working around the idiotic policies of ScoMo and his band of know-nothing sycophants. It intends to introduce legislation that will fast track projects like grid-scale batteries and transmission upgrades. It also intends to promote more large scale solar and wind capacity on the grid.

Other Australian states are noticing what is going on in South Australia and Victoria and want in on the action. The Northern Territories government has proposed its own battery storage facility for the Darwin-Katherine grid. PV Magazine adds that almost every new grid scale renewable energy project in the country will either incorporate grid storage or be built as battery-ready so connection to a battery facility can be made at a later time.

It must be galling for ScoMo to realize that, despite all his blustering and pontificating, no one is paying the slightest attention to his diatribes. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.