According to foreign media reports, AGL Energy, a major energy retailer in Australia, has announced that it has started construction of a 50MW/50MWh battery energy storage system in Broken Hill, New South Wales, and plans to put it into use in mid-2023.
Broken Hill has a long history of development as a mining city. In recent years, more and more solar and wind power facilities have been built and deployed in this area, including the 53MW Broken Hill solar farm deployed by AGL Energy, which went online and operated in 2016. Another 200MW Silverton wind farm deployed by the company will be put into operation one year later.
However, because the Broken Hill mining area is located in a remote area, and the connection with the power grid is weak, the locally produced renewable energy is often cut when the power is surplus. Therefore, this site was selected as an ideal site to test the function of the intelligent inverter to help balance the local power grid operation.
According to industry media reports in March this year, this energy storage project with a cost of 41 million Australian dollars (US$ 26.32 million) was funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) with 14.83 million Australian dollars. AGL Energy's battery energy storage project will demonstrate and test how advanced inverters can provide inertia for the power grid, which is traditionally provided by fossil fuel power generation facilities.
Darren Miller, CEO of Australia's Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), said at the opening of the project a few days ago: "With the adoption of more renewable energy in Australia's power system, it will become more and more important to provide energy storage solutions with stable power grid operation capability. The Broken Hill battery energy storage system being deployed by AGL Energy will test the advanced inverter technology under some of the most challenging grid conditions, and at the same time improve the security and stability of the power system in the region. "
Fluence, a technology supplier and system integrator, will provide a battery energy storage system for this energy storage project. The company said that its battery energy storage system will be set to grid mode, which can cope with the changes in network voltage and frequency, and provide inertia through "virtual machine mode" in Fluence's software and control system.
This demonstration project funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is to accelerate the commercialization of large-scale battery energy storage systems using grid-specific inverters in areas with weak grid power supply, provide cheaper alternatives for some costly grid infrastructure equipment, help reduce the investment risk of renewable energy, and let stakeholders such as grid operators and public utilities know the functions of smart inverters.
The project will also be used to assess whether the equipment and protocols of grid-connected battery energy storage systems need to be standardized. This is very important because the Broken Hill battery energy storage system is one of many battery energy storage projects with advanced inverters. Some existing large-scale battery energy storage projects (such as the Hoorns Dale battery energy storage project in South Australia) have been transformed with them.
Meanwhile, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing funds for the development of other advanced battery energy storage projects and launched a competitive tender earlier this year.
In September this year, the Victorian government announced that it would provide 126 million Australian dollars for two grid-connected battery energy storage projects. The Broken Hill battery energy storage system will also take advantage of the application opportunities in Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM), such as frequency control auxiliary service (FCAS) and wholesale arbitrage.
In a few years, the city of Broken Hill may deploy a larger-scale energy storage system with another parameter storage technology. Hydrostor Canada is developing a 200MW/1600MWh advanced compressed air energy storage system (A-CAES) in this city.
Australia's Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) pledged last month to invest 45 million Australian dollars in Hydrostor's Silver City Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage Project. Transgrid Company, a power transmission network operator in New South Wales, has chosen it as the first choice to provide backup power for Broken Hill. Hydrostor hopes to complete the financial settlement of the project next year.
