Add Category
British-owned energy company Pacific Green Australia has plans to construct a 1-gigawatt, 30-hectare grid-scale battery park in Portland, Victoria.
Once built, it will be one of the largest batteries in the nation.
Elsewhere in the region, Origin Energy last week approved a smaller 300-megawatt battery at their Mortlake Power Station.
But the developments don't even scratch the surface in terms of what the state will require in the transition to net zero, according to renewables market expert.
Powering 100,00 homes
Pacific Green's managing director of Australian operations, Joel Alexander, said the Portland Energy Park would provide critical support for existing and proposed renewable projects in the area.
"Once operational, the battery park could power 100,00 homes at any given point," he said.
Five hours west of Melbourne, Portland has a natural deep-water international port and is home to aluminium smelter Alcoa, Victoria's biggest energy consumer.
The developer said the battery park had no connection to the smelter, but it would help add resilience to the local power grid.
"The site secured is Industrial 2 Zone and has a transmission line running through," Mr Alexander said.
"We can pull energy from the grid and put it back into the grid when it needs it most."
Industrial 2 zoning is for large industrial areas that have a core more than 1,500 metres from residential areas and are of state significance, according to the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning's website.
Mr Alexander said grid-scale batteries like the one proposed, and another planned for the nearby Limestone Coast in South Australia, would be essential for the country's transition away from fossil fuels.
"We want our battery storage to be full of renewable power from the sun and from the wind," Mr Alexander said.
"So putting a battery park in an area where there's planned to be more renewables is a good thing."
"In the middle part of the day when there's an excess amount of energy in the grid — when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing — our battery park starts to charge."
He said what that also meant was the park became a heavy user of the grid.
"[So] any solar or wind farms that aren't turned on, because there is an excess in the grid, can actually turn on, which then promotes more renewable generation," Mr Alexander said.
'Enormous' amounts of battery storage required
Bruce Mountain, who heads up the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, said despite the growing number of proposals for huge battery parks, the state would need to brace itself for a whole lot more.
"The lithium battery storage market is booming in Victoria and South Australia," Dr Mountain said.
"It's scratching the surface to be perfectly honest."
He said the amount of storage needed to re-use renewable energy surplus would rise exponentially as the state decreased fossil fuel generation.
"We've done various studies on this," Dr Mountain said.
"Absolutely enormous amounts of storage are needed once you get to 90 per cent wind and solar, as a proportion of your energy mix.
"There are other massive battery developments much closer to Melbourne.
"But we will need in the order of 100s to 1000s more to fully decarbonise energy supply, just in Victoria."
The Portland Energy Park project is currently in the pre-planning approval stage and still requires approval from the Victorian planning minister, but Pacific Green hopes to be feeding energy into the grid by 2026.