Australia's largest battery to be built at NSW coal-fired power plant
14 Jan 2021, 2:12 am
A 700 megawatts (MW) capacity battery is to be built at a coal-fired power plant in Eraring in the Hunter region of New South Wales.
Australia’s energy retailer Origin Energy has announced that the battery would have the capacity to supply power to the grid for four hours, making it the largest battery project currently under consideration in Australia.
Origin sent an expression of interest to private firms for conducting and installing the battery at its Eraring plant. At the same time, it has started discussions about connecting the battery to the national grid via the Eraring substation.
The Eraring plant is Origin’s only coal-fired plant. It currently supplies a quarter of NSW’s energy needs and is scheduled to close in 2032.
The battery will be built in three stages and the first stage will be completed by end of 2022. It is reported that the battery project will assist Origin’s transition away from coal-fired generation by 2032 that is in line with the energy plan passed by the NSW parliament at the end of last year.
Eliza Danby, an infrastructure expert at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law, said: “Importantly, in years to come the battery will support the enormous investment that is currently being made into wind and solar projects in NSW.”
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