Energy storage developments | Australia’s biggest battery
Wärtsilä has been selected by Origin Energy to deliver the third stage of the Eraring battery facility at Origin’s Eraring 4 x 720 MW coal fired power station site in New South Wales, Australia. Under this agreement, Wärtsilä will add a further 700 MWh of energy storage capacity, taking the Eraring battery facility to 700 MW / 2 800 MWh, once completed. This makes it the largest battery project in Australia and one of the largest in the world. “The scale of this project is impressive, delivering the largest total dispatch duration of an operating battery or project under construction in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Greg Jarvis, Head of Energy Supply and Operations at Origin. The Eraring battery will connect to Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM), enhancing energy security and reliability in New South Wales as renewable energy supply increases. “Embarking on stage three of the Eraring battery is a major step forward in transforming the Eraring power station and supporting Origin in achieving their goal to exit coal-fired generation,” commented Andrew Tang, Vice President of Energy Storage & Optimisation at Wärtsilä Energy. A critical aspect of the system is Wärtsilä’s GEMS Digital Energy Platform, which monitors and controls power flows, enabling facilities like Eraring to provide grid support during periods of instability. GEMS will provide firming capacity to balance Origin’s generation portfolio in support of its retail customer load.
Delivering Eraring,
Stage 1 of the Eraring battery in New South Wales, Australia, currently under construction (with the four coal fired units visible in the background). © Origin Energy
Eraring stage 3 will employ Wärtsilä’s “fully integrated, modular, and compact” Quantum energy storage system, which, according to Wärtsilä, offers “low lifecycle costs, fast deployment times, and the highest quality control.” Wärtsilä says it has worked closely with Origin to meet stringent noise requirements for the site, resulting in a site-specific noise solution. Wärtsilä will also provide a long-term service agreement to Origin for the supplied equipment. Eraring stage 1 and 3 will operate in grid- following mode, with the potential to switch
operation to grid-forming in the future, providing the capability to supply a variety of system strength and system restart ancillary services. Stage 2 will operate in grid-forming mode as soon as it enters commercial operation. Origin selected Wärtsilä for stage 1 of the project in 2023 and stage 2 earlier in 2024. Completion of stage 3 is expected alongside stage 1, at the end of 2025. Stage 2 is expected to come online at the beginning of 2027. Wärtsilä says its energy storage portfolio in Australia now exceeds 3.3 GWh.
CIP charges to the top of the UK battery stack
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has, through its flagship fund CI IV, achieved positive financial investment decision (FID) and issued notice to proceed to commence construction of two further battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Scotland.
Coalburn 2 is situated in South Lanarkshire, adjacent to CIP’s existing Coalburn 1 BESS project, and Devilla is situated in Fife, near the town of Kincardine.
Each project is sized at 500 MW and, once commissioned, will be the largest battery storage projects in Europe, CIP believes.
The two new projects represent an investment of approximately £800 million. They expand CIP’s UK BESS construction portfolio from one to three projects and, according to CIP, make it the largest battery storage investor in the UK. The CIP UK BESS portfolio (Coalburn 1, Coalburn 2, and Devilla) will have a total power of 1.5 GW, with 3 GWh of storage capacity. Nischal Agarwal, partner at CIP, said: “CIP’s latest investments in Scottish battery energy storage will support the UK’s pursuit of a clean power system by 2030 and delivering a net zero carbon economy by 2050. Battery storage that is well located, like our Coalburn and Devilla projects, enhances energy security, provides the grid with much needed flexibility and enables low cost renewables to be deployed faster. CIP is fully committed to a vibrant Scottish renewable sector.”
Coalburn site (photo: Alcemi)
In February 2022, CIP’s CI IV fund entered a partnership with Alcemi, a London based large- scale-BESS developer, to develop a UK wide portfolio of BESS projects to FID. CIP’s FID for Coalburn 2 and Devilla comes approximately one
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year after an equivalent decision for Coalburn 1. Battery technology provider e-STORAGE, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar and a Tier 1 global energy storage solutions provider, will supply the battery systems for all three projects. H&MV Engineering and the OCU Group have been contracted to supply balance of plant and electrical engineering services for Coalburn 2 and Devilla, respectively. Wood Group is providing construction management services for both the Coalburn 2 and Devilla sites. Founded in 2012, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is the world’s largest dedicated fund manager within the greenfield renewable energy investment sector and a global leader in offshore wind. The funds managed by CIP focus on investments in offshore and onshore wind, solar PV, biomass and energy-from-waste, transmission and distribution, reserve capacity, storage, advanced bioenergy, and power-to-X. In the UK, CIP is investing in over 30 GW of renewable energy infrastructure, representing over £15 billion of future investment potential, the company says.
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