November 16, 2025: The schedule for full operation of Australia’s 850MW/1,680MWh Waratah Super Battery project has been pushed back into 2026, following a reported “catastrophic” failure involving a transformer.

Operator Akaysha Energy said in August that the first 350MW/700MWh of the lithium ion BESS had gone online, serving as a ‘shock absorber’ for the New South Wales electricity grid in case of events such as heatwaves, lightning strikes and bush fires.

However, according to an internal memo sent by Nick Carter, chief executive of BlackRock-owned Akaysha, the catastrophic transformer failure happened last month.

The memo was published by The Australian Financial Review on November 11. Akaysha has not publicly acknowledged the memo but said in an update, released on the same day, that issues were identified with two transformers during testing to transition the battery to full capacity.

However, Akaysha said Waratah was still operating at 350MW capacity — in line with its interim commercial operating capacity requirements.
The battery’s remaining capacity is now expected to come online during 2026, Akaysha said.

The New South Wales state government gave planning approval for the BESS, using Powin’s Stack lithium ion technology, in 2023.

Waratah had been scheduled to be fully operational toward the end of this year, providing a guaranteed continuous active power capacity of at least 700MW and a guaranteed usable energy storage capacity of at least 1,400 MWh.

Akaysha has said previously the capacity would be enough to supply 970,000 homes with electricity for one hour, fully charge nearly 46 million smartphones in one hour and supply 80,000 homes with electricity for a full day (based on 21kWh per day usage).