Rendering of Maoneng’s Mornington BESS 240MWp/480MWh venture. Picture: Maoneng.
Developer Maoneng Group has acquired fairness funding dedication that the corporate claims will quick observe a few of Australia’s greatest battery storage initiatives.
Gaw Capital Companions, a Hong Kong-based actual property fairness funding group has entered the renewable vitality sector with its undisclosed funding into New South Wales-headquartered Maoneng.
The pair’s new three way partnership (JV), known as Gaw Maoneng Renewables (GMR), will velocity ahead the event of six initiatives together with Maoneng’s Mornington and Gould Creek battery vitality storage system (BESS) initiatives which have already acquired growth approval.
Mornington BESS is a 240MW/480MWh system that might be inbuilt Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, a area well-liked with vacationers and subsequently seeing huge fluctuations in demand for electrical energy all year long.
It acquired growth approval from native authorities early this yr, after which in Could obtained grid connection approval, as reported by Vitality-Storage.information.
Gould Creek in the meantime is in South Australia, and is sort of as huge, at a deliberate 225MW output and 450MWh capability. It obtained growth approval from the state’s Minister for Planning and Native Authorities in October 2021.
Each methods will cost up throughout off-peak occasions and occasions of surplus renewable vitality era, discharging to the grid when renewable vitality manufacturing is decrease, demand is increased and subsequently electrical energy costs additionally increased.
They’ll play into the Nationwide Electrical energy Market (NEM) and can be capable to present ancillary providers via the NEM’s frequency management ancillary providers (FCAS) market.
Moreover, Maoneng has three different BESS initiatives in New South Wales in its growth pipeline, for which it mentioned growth approval has been utilized for, in addition to Merriwa Photo voltaic Farm, a renewable vitality hub comprising 550MWac of photo voltaic PV and a 400MW BESS, additionally in New South Wales.
Once more, functions for growth approval have been lodged with authorities for Merriwa, whereas on Maoneng’s aspect it mentioned it has completed essential grid research and begun tendering for building contractors or companions. The corporate hopes to have Merriwa constructed and on-line throughout 2025.
In the meantime Mornington BESS is anticipated to start building in Q1 2023, with a completion date in early 2024. Gould Creek might come on-line after a year-long building course of, which Maoneng hopes will start this yr.
GMR’s pipeline provides as much as a mixed 1.9GW and would require an estimated complete funding of greater than AU$2 billion (US$1.25 billion) to assemble, join and fee.
Australian market using on market and policy-driven wave
“The transition to renewable vitality in Australia is accelerating underneath this authorities’s coverage, and batteries are a key piece to the puzzle in facilitating increased grid penetration by photo voltaic and wind. The partnership permits us to deal with the job and to get it completed sooner,” GMR chief govt and managing director Morris Zhou mentioned.
Australia’s large-scale battery storage market seems to be on a giant upward trajectory, notably however not restricted to, the states of New South Wales and Victoria.
This has been pushed by a mixture of the nation’s excessive adoption of renewable vitality, its relative lack of interconnectivity of the grid over lengthy distances and latterly by supportive insurance policies at state and now federal authorities stage.
By the way, when it was introduced, Mornington BESS was Australia’s greatest deliberate venture of its kind. That has now been overtaken by the Waratah Tremendous Battery in New South Wales for which key contract awards have been made prior to now few days.
Waratah Tremendous Battery’s developer Akaysha Vitality intends to construct it as a 850MW/1,680MWh asset, together with 700MW/1,400MWh that might be contracted for by the state authorities as a System Safety Integrity Scheme (SIPS) “shock absorber” for the transmission community.
