September 9, 2024: Australia’s federal government confirmed on September 4 it would underwrite the construction of six new BESS projects across two of the country’s states with a total storage of 1,081MW.
Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen said the projects in Victoria and South Australia had been selected under the first round of the government’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS).
Detailed individual project costings were not disclosed, but Bowen said the developers had committed a total investment of A$12.5 million ($8.4 million) of shared benefits to local project communities and A$6.5 million of initiatives for local first nations groups, as well as extensive use of local supply chains.
Under the CIS, if electricity prices are too low for the companies who build projects to generate a profit, the government will pay the difference. However, if a company’s earnings exceed a specified ceiling, the government will share in the profits.
The projects are:
Wooreen 350MW BESS operated by EnergyAustralia in Victoria;
Springvale Energy Hub 115MW BESS to be developed by Progress Power in Victoria;
Limestone Coast West 250MW operated by Pacific Green in South Australia;
Solar River, a hybrid BESS project of 256MW, operated by Zen Energy, South Australia;
Clements Gap, a 60MW BESS operated by Pacific Blue, South Australia;
Hallett 50MW BESS owned by Energy Australia, South Australia.
The batteries selected for federal funding support can run for up to four hours and will operate in conjunction with renewable power sources, the government said.
The projects’ selection follows a pilot tender for dispatchable capacity across the two states that received more than 100 bids.
Many of the unsuccessful bids were also of high quality and will be encouraged to rebid in the next tender for the National Electricity Market, scheduled for the end of the year.
In May this year, the federal government opened the national tender to bring an additional 6GW of renewable generation and batteries onto the east-coast grid.
Like the South Australian and Victorian tender, the first national auction for electricity generation was massively oversubscribed, attracting 40GW worth of registrations, which the government said is enough to power more than 21 million homes.
