Neoen has announced plans to expand its Hornsdale Power Reserve battery energy storage site in Australia by 50 per cent.
The developer will add 50 MW/64.5 MWh to the existing battery site in South Australia using Tesla batteries. The site will be the first grid-scale battery in Australia to provide inertia benefits to the National Electricity Market and will further showcase the benefits that grid-scale batteries can provide, Neoen said.
In its first year of operation, the existing Hornsdale battery has saved consumers more than A$50 million, Neoen added. The expansion will be completed in the first half of 2020.
The expansion will provide Australia’s first large-scale demonstration of the potential for battery storage to provide inertia to the network which is critical to grid stability and the future integration of renewable energy. This will ensure South Australia can continue to harvest wind and solar resources and support the transition to net 100 per cent renewable energy generation in the 2030s.
The project is backed by a grant from the South Australian government’s Grid Scale Storage Fund worth A$3 million/year for five years.
It will also be the first battery project in Australia to benefit from debt financing support from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).
Dan van Holst Pellekaan, South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining said: “With this expansion, the Hornsdale Power Reserve will continue to break new ground in providing and proving the benefits of inertial response from inverter technologies.
“As South Australia continues to increase its share of renewable energy generation, large-scale storage solutions such as grid-scale batteries will help address some of the key challenges impacting South Australia’s power system, such as energy reliability and inertia.”
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