Singaporean developer sizes up Australia’s ‘largest’ battery

Equis Development has committed to invest $1.9 billion (USD 1.27 billion) to develop the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH) north of the Victorian state capital after acquiring the battery energy storage project from Australian renewables developer Syncline Energy.

Previously known as the Melton Renewable Energy Hub, the project was first unveiled in August 2021 by Melbourne-based Syncline. The original design featured a 600 MW/2,400 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) backed by a 12.5 MWp solar farm to supply the battery’s ancillary cooling loads and ensure low cost, ‘net-zero’ operations. But Equis, which assumed full control of the project earlier this year, has since rebranded and resized the big battery.

The MREH, to be built on a 90-hectare site just 25 kilometres northwest of Melbourne, has been boosted to include a 1,200 MWh battery system while the storage capacity will remain at 2.4 GWh. The massive facility will connect to the National Electricity Market (NEM) via the state’s main 500 kV transmission link and will collect excess energy, store it and then release it back into the grid to satisfy demand.

Equis said it is expected the battery will be capable of stabilising about 1.6 GW of solar power or 1.2 GW of wind generation.

“Fully developed, MREH will be … the largest such system in Australia and Asia,” the company said. “MREH is Australia’s only BESS above 200 MW in capacity that connects to the NEM’s high voltage 500 kV transmission system, allowing a volume of electricity to be rapidly dispatched unmatched by other battery storage systems.”

The MREH, which has received all necessary planning approvals after being fast tracked by the Victorian government as a ‘project of state significance’, will be rolled out in two 600 MW stages with construction of the first phase scheduled to begin in early 2023 with operations anticipated to commence in 2024.

The battery project will utilise lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry batteries provided by Finnish technology group Wartsila.

Equis said the MREH had been “uniquely developed” with six separate 200 MW points of connection to the NEM, allowing the battery to satisfy different uses and grid responses simultaneously. The company said the project has been designed with innovative inverter technology to support the transmission grid’s voltage and frequency and replace ‘system inertia’ that is lost when coal and gas-fired power stations retire over the next decade.

“The scale and uniqueness of MREH’s approvals and development mean it will be capable of providing both short and long-hour storage and response services catering to the changing demands of the National Electricity Market,” Equis Managing Director David Russell said.

Equis anticipates the project will also facilitate the development of a large-scale battery recycling hub and hydrogen production facility.

Syncline, which is to remain involved with the project until major construction starts, said the battery is ideally sited because of its proximity to the main 500 kV line and expects the positioning will allow it to support Victoria’s Murray River, Western Victoria and South Victoria renewable energy zones.

“Four years ago, Syncline combed Victoria for the ideal location to build a large-scale grid storage battery which would partially replace the state’s ageing fleet of coal generation plants,” Syncline Managing Director Phil Galloway said. “We needed enough space to operate safely and to minimise the impact on the community. It also had to be at the metropolitan load centre, to ensure that we could improve the reliability and resilience of the grid and materially support regional wind and solar energy.

“Finally, we had to connect at 500kV to deliver the volume of energy that is required when Australia’s large thermal generators retire over the next 10 years. MREH was the ideal location.”

The MREH project is just one of a 39 renewable energy, battery storage and waste infrastructure projects worth more than $6.5 billion that Equis, which is backed by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, said it is currently developing in Australia.

While the MREH is the biggest of its battery projects, Equis has also announced plans to develop a 300MW/1,200MWh battery near Tamworth in New South Wales, a 200 MW/800 MWh energy storage system near Brinkworth in South Australia and two battery projects totalling 250 MW in Queensland.