Australia Picks Massive Tesla-Supplied Battery to Ease Transmission Constraint

Australia Picks Massive Tesla-Supplied Battery to Ease Transmission Constraint
Reading Time: < 1 minute

An artist’s rendering of the Victorian Big Battery, which will assist power flows between two Australian states. (Credit: Neoen) Australia has lots of renewable power, but limited high-voltage power lines to move it around the country. Now it’s tapping a massive battery to help. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) last week awarded a competitive contract to developer Neoen to build the project dubbed the "Victorian Big Battery" along the transmission line connecting the states of Victoria and New South Wales. At 300 megawatts/450 megawatt-hours, this project will eclipse the size of all other grid batteries online today, at least for now . Besides the eye-catching scale and the fact that Tesla will supply the project with its Megapack battery product, the Victorian Big Battery is notable for what it will do: act like transmission infrastructure. The battery is set to come online by November 2021, fulfilling a System Integrity Protection Scheme contract with AEMO through 2032. That grid jargon means that the battery will guarantee instantaneous power in case the transmission network suffers an unexpected outage. That assurance should let the grid operator move an extra 250 MW of peak capacity between the states, helping to balance the […]

Newsletter Signup

Sign up for exclusive content, original stories, activism awareness, events and more.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Support Us.

Happy Eco News will always remain free for anyone who needs it. Help us spread the good news about the environment!