Rendering of Energy Vault EVx energy storage system concept. Image: Energy Vault.

NTPC, a state-owned power producer and utility company in India, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Energy Vault, the startup seeking to commercialise a novel energy storage technology.

Swiss-American company Energy Vault is developing a gravity-based energy storage system (ESS) that involves lifting and lowering blocks made of a concrete-like composite material that each weigh several tonnes to store and release energy.

The company has raised some serious investment money, including US$195 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) which was committed to its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Energy Vault listed in February this year after a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital Corporation II. Investors in the PIPE included Korea Zinc and Atlas Renewable, the latter a company set up to facilitate investment and partnerships with the Chinese renewable energy and power sectors.

All this was despite Energy Vault having stated ahead of the SPAC merger that its grid-scale ESS technology was far from perfected. Although it has built one demonstration project in Switzerland to date, a complete redesign of the system has been unveiled since then.

What was originally a giant tower swinging weights suspended from cranes now looks more like a rectangular building frame filled with elevators.

Meanwhile NTPC, by some measures India’s largest power utility company with over 65GW of assets in its portfolio, said in June 2021 that it is seeking to install 1,000MWh of energy storage at the sites of its existing power generation facilities.

This was considered a fairly significant announcement given that the name NTPC originally stood for National Thermal Power Corporation and came amid growing interest in encouraging energy storage deployment – particularly from batteries – in India at both national and state government level as well as from private industry.

India is targeting the deployment of 500GW of renewable energy by 2030, with energy storage seen as a key means to support and enable that. A 1,000MWh tender for standalone energy storage was recently launched by the national Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), for example.

Energy Vault and NTPC have signed the MoU which will see the pair conduct a joint feasibility study of the Energy Vault EVx gravity storage technology as well as associated software solutions.

Based on the outcome of that initial collaboration, a formal long-term strategic partnership could be formed, Energy Vault said yesterday. The EVx technology’s composite weight blocks could also be made using coal ash as a component, which could offer NTPC a route to repurposing some of its power plant waste.

“As a large, integrated power producer, it is critical for NTPC to have a diverse clean energy portfolio to decarbonise India’s economy. We have enhanced our renewable capacity addition targets to spearhead India’s energy transition goals and we are focusing on solar, wind, round-the-clock renewable energy (RTC) and hybrid projects to achieve the targets,” NTPC managing director and chairman Gurdeep Singh said.

“The collaboration with Energy Vault will help NTPC in furthering its energy transition goals through a sustainable approach by way of utilising coal ash for manufacturing of composite blocks. Accordingly, this collaboration will also promote a circular economy.”

Energy Vault CEO Robert Picconi said the collaboration with NTPC builds on an ongoing strategy of global expansion for the energy storage startup. Earlier this year it claimed a 100MWh EVx project in China is set to begin construction in the second quarter of 2022.

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Yotta project manager Thomas Gutierrez (left) gets hands-on, installing the company’s energy storage solution. Image: Business Wire/Yotta.

Ontario to trial dynamic electricity pricing for all 50kW-plus consumers

A pilot programme to implement dynamic electricity pricing for all users of electricity with over 50kW in peak demand in the Canadian province of Ontario is set to begin in 2024.

The regulator of the power sector Ontario Energy Board (OEB) is working with the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) to develop the programme which will assess the benefits for Class B consumers.

In Ontario, Class B electricity consumers include anyone with a peak demand of 50kW up to 5MW. Those with an average peak demand of over 500kW can already participate in the Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI), which allows them to reduce their demand during peak periods of electricity consumption on the grid: those who take part are classified as Class A consumers.

Part of the ICI is the Global Adjustment Charge (GAC) which offers electricity cost savings to companies that use battery storage to do peak shaving. The programme has seen the behind-the-meter (BTM) commercial & industrial (C&I) storage sector in Ontario bloom in recent years.

For example, Enel X recently announced a 40MWh BTM battery energy storage system (BESS) at Imperial Oil’s petrochemical complex in Sarnia which it said would be the largest in North America.

A consultation is expected to begin in July this year, with an application process starting in November followed by 18 months of design and recruitment before in-field testing begins in March 2024. Measurement and evaluation will run from September 2025 to June 2026.

Battery analytics firm TWAICE raises US$30 million Series B extension

Germany-based battery analytics firm TWAICE has raised US$30 million in an extension to last year’s Series B funding round, bringing its total amount raised to-date to US$75 million.

It has raised the additional funding from global investment firm Coatue, personal investment from Lip-Bu Tan and participation from existing investors. It raised its US$26 million Series B in May last year.

TWAICE, which targets both the energy storage and EV market, said the money will be used to further optimise its cloud analytics platform and expand its presence in Europe and North America, including growing its new office in Chicago.

It added that it has increased its sales by roughly 250% since May 2021, and counts five of the world’s leading battery OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as its customers.

In August last year, business development manager Sebastian Becker wrote a guest article for our publisher Solar Media’s quarterly journal PV Tech Power, in which he explained the benefits of battery analytics software.

Yotta extends Series A and bags military contract

Yotta Energy, which produces batteries designed to be integrated with rooftop solar PV, has also extended its recent fundraising round.

It has bagged a US$3.5 million extension to a US$13 million Series A round held in November 2021. The new money includes a strategic investment from inverter manufacturer APsystems, with which Yotta collaborated to develop the company’s first power conversion system (PCS) designed to be interchangeable between solar and energy storage.

Yotta’s flagship product is the SolarLEAF, a lithium iron-phosphate (LFP) battery designed to be installed directly atop racking systems on the rear side of PV panels. The company claims the battery’s built-in fireproof cases and thermal protection tech will save installers from having to add fire containment and HVAC systems.

Olivier Jacques, APsystems president of global business units, commented: “During our time working with Yotta, we have seen firsthand the positive disruption they are making in the industry. No zoning, no concrete, and efficient energy storage direct to DC. It was an obvious choice to support Yotta in its Series A raise.”

In addition to the Series A extension, Yotta has also been awarded a US$1.97 million grant from the US Department of Defense’s Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP). Yotta will build a new solar and storage microgrid project at the Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“Yotta Energy is a great candidate for this [ESTCP] program because of the distributed and flexible solution the technology provides for different use-cases on military installations,” said Timothy Tetreault, Project Manager at ESTCP.

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TotalEnergies’ solar power plant Total Nuevas Energias – SunPower is located in El Salvador, in the region of Atacama, Chile. (Credit: Zylberman Laurent – Graphix Images – TotalEnergies)

TotalEnergies is further expanding its presence in the U.S. renewable energy industry by acquiring Austin-based Core Solar LLC, which has a portfolio with more than 4 GW of utility-scale solar and energy storage projects at various stages of development across several U.S. states and power markets. Core Solar’s CEO Greg Nelson and his employees will join TotalEnergies’ teams.

With this acquisition, TotalEnergies now has a portfolio of more than 10 GW gross capacity of renewable projects in operation, in construction and in development in the U.S. In large scale solar energy, TotalEnergies is already developing 2.2 GW of projects, initially carried by SunChase Power, and 1.6 GW of projects in partnership with Hanwha Energy, which will be completed by the 4 GW of projects acquired from Core Solar. These portfolios also include energy storage projects.

In offshore wind energy, TotalEnergies is starting the development of a 3 GW wind farm off the coast of New York and New Jersey, which was awarded last February during the New York Bight auction. The company has also launched a floating offshore joint venture with Simply Blue. Beyond, TotalEnergies is working on the preparation of the upcoming auction of offshore wind projects off the coast of California.

In solar distributed generation, TotalEnergies acquired in the first quarter of 2022 the industrial and commercial solar activities of SunPower with the objective to develop more than 100 MW per year of additional capacity.

“We are delighted with this new addition to our portfolio of solar projects in the U.S., a key region for achieving our global target of 100 GW of renewable projects in operation by 2030,” says Vincent Stoquart, senior vice president of renewables at TotalEnergies. “This attractive 4 GW pipeline of projects will strengthen and diversify our portfolio.”

“We are thrilled to join TotalEnergies with its unparalleled financial capability, project execution and operational excellence,” states Greg Nelson, president and CEO at Core Solar. “This will enable the business to accelerate its growth across the U.S. solar market. The Core Solar team brings with it an exceptional ability that will contribute to TotalEnergies’ ambition to become a market leader in solar energy delivery in the U.S.”

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A Dynapower battery energy storage system (BESS) unit. Image: Dynapower.

Dynapower, a US manufacturer of energy storage and power conversion system (PCS) equipment, will be acquired by Sensata, a maker of industrial sensors.

In a deal announced yesterday, Sensata has agreed to buy Dynapower for US$580 million from the current owner, private equity group Pfingstein Partners. The cash deal is expected to complete in Q3 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.

Sensata is making a big push to generate a targeted US$2 billion in revenues from activities relating to electrification by 2026 and has already made a number of other acquisitions in this area. The company said Dynapower is projected to earn revenue of about US$100 million during this year, with EBITDA margins of about 20%.

Dynapower makes a range of different equipment, from inverters and converters to rectifiers and custom transformers to customers involved in renewable energy generation, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, green hydrogen and microgrids as well as industrial and defence sectors.

In the stationary energy storage space it is perhaps best known for its PCS technologies, with the company’s DC-to-DC converters used in US battery storage manufacturer Powin Energy’s grid-scale DC-coupled solar-plus-storage solutions, for example.

Dynapower also makes its own battery storage units and serves behind-the-meter commercial and industrial (C&I) as well as front-of-meter utility segments of the battery storage market with its range.

“Dynapower enables us to deliver highly engineered, mission-critical power conversion systems to fast growing renewable energy storage, industrial and defence customers and help drive our Electrification growth vector,” Sensata CEO and president Jeff Cote said.

Sensata forecasts that Dynapower’s revenues will represent more than 50% of that US$2 billion target.

Dynapower CEO Adam Knudsen said the acquisition will enable his company to scale up further through leveraging the new owner’s global resources, helping to “accelerate the transition to green energy”.

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The rollout will initially be at 42 of Stream’s properties. Image: Stream Realty Partners.

US commercial real estate firm Stream Realty Partners is partnering with independent power producer Catalyze to deploy over 450MW of solar and battery storage projects across its industrial properties portfolio.

Stream, which describes itself as a a national real estate services, development, and investment company announced the Master Framework Agreement with Colorado-based Catalyze on Friday (22 April).

The two will cooperate to deploy 450MW of solar PV, battery storage, and EV charging solutions across Stream’s 40 million square foot portfolio. The rollout will initially be at 42 of Stream’s properties including in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Catalyze is a national independent power producer that develops, constructs, owns, and operates integrated renewable assets. Two years ago, it launched a new software solution aimed at streamlining the process of deploying commercial and industrial (C&I) sited energy storage and solar solutions. The company is backed by investment groups Yorktown Partners and EnCap Investments.

Adam Jackson, Stream Chief Investment Officer and Chairman of the firm’s ESG Committee, alluded to Catalyze’s capabilities, commenting: “Our partnership with Catalyze makes it effective and profitable to streamline deployment of clean energy solutions across our growing pipeline of industrial facilities while supporting the power grid throughout our industrial portfolio.”

Catalyze said it will de-risk Stream’s costs and supply chains and accelerate construction across the pipeline, allowing for more rapid clean energy development and emissions reductions.

Businesses in the US are increasingly investing in on-site solar and storage projects like Stream is doing to save on energy costs. Some IPPs are starting to make sizeable investments in portfolios specifically comprise of these sorts of C&I-sited projects.

“As the real estate industry moves ESG to the top of its priority list, owners are seeking simple, cost-efficient ways to integrate clean energy solutions and reduce emissions across entire portfolios,” said Steve Luker, Catalyze CEO.

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Cenin, a 4MW storage asset using Tesla battery packs in Wales in which Gore Street holds a 49% stake. Image: Gore Street Capital.

London Stock Exchange-listed energy storage investor Gore Street Capital CEO Alex O’Cinneide discussed its fund’s recent expansion outside UK/Ireland and which markets are most of interest, in an interview with Energy-storage.news.

Gore Street Capital is the fund manager of the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC, a £560 million (US$710 million) market cap investment vehicle which recently branched out of the UK and Ireland for the first time with deals in Germany and Texas, USA. It then raised another £150 million to execute on its 1.3GW acquisition pipeline comprising 900MW in Great Britain (GB), 375MW in North America and 100MW in Europe.

“So the target for our portfolio is now 40% GB/Ireland and then 60% Western Europe and North America, but we’re currently at 85% GB/Ireland so it will be a while before we get there. Basically, half of our portfolio will always be GB/Ireland,” O’Cinneide said. In this case Great Britain encompasses England, Scotland and Wales but not Northern Ireland, which has a grid shared with the Republic of Ireland to the south.

The GB storage market is still very fragmented, with Gore Street’s market share of operational battery storage capacity at 12-13%, and only a few percent at most of the development pipeline (based on Solar Media’s UK Battery Storage Project Database Report figures). Considering this, Energy-storage.news asked O’Cinneide why it decided to diversify from GB/Ireland in the first place.

“We’ve been an international player since 2019 with Ireland. We can leverage our expertise in supply chain as it is the same manufacturers across markets, and it’s the same types of revenues too, albeit with different regulations. For us it allows a diversification away from just GB and Ireland and gives us more growth opportunities,” he said.

O’Cinneide was then asked whether it was the expectation of falling returns in the UK market this year which prompted the move. He indicated that the high prices seen recently may stay longer than expected as the market saturates less quickly than some forecasts.

“We believe that the GB market still has very strong growth opportunities for us. We’re definitely seeing all-time high pricing across grid balancing but we believe that will remain for a while. Yes, there is a big buildout coming but we don’t believe all of that will get built because of pressures on supply chain and new entrants just not having the relationships to guarantee project delivery.”

The discussion then moved on to how Gore Street had approached its internationalisation and how this differed to its GB and Ireland approach.

O’Cinneide said the firm has been looking at deals in North America and West Europe since 2019. He sees operational assets as a good first point of entry in a new market as it provides immediate hard data on asset performance and certainty about operational activity. He also said that the UK’s relatively earlier move to a merchant business model, where even grid balancing contracts are very short-term, sets Gore Street apart in other markets too.

He added that most markets have similar revenues per MW/MWh to GB/Ireland with the Texas ERCOT market a little higher. Gore Street aims for a 10-12% internal rate of return (IRR) across its portfolio, which it over-achieved on last year with 14.1%.

Strong returns should now be achievable in Germany where a utility-scale BESS market which has been fairly stagnant in recent years by deployments nonetheless saw a six-fold increase in overall revenues last year.

O’Cinneide: “Germany is a big opportunity. It’s a very stable and large economy with incredible underpinnings to the relevant macro themes like climate change and energy security. Revenues there are nearly all grid balancing, very similar to GB.”

“Bread and butter for us is buying projects from developers and taking them into construction ourselves as we like to own the EPC process and I would imagine you will start seeing more of that from us in Germany. There aren’t that many operational assets for sale there.”

ERCOT, meanwhile, is one of the markets where BESS projects have the highest proportion of revenues from energy trading at around 50% with grid balancing the other 50%. O’Cinneide said an optimal revenue mix in the UK is 80-85% grid balancing, 10% capacity and 5-10% energy trading, although market intelligence firm Modo Energy reckons this is shifting towards more trading.

Acquisitions in ERCOT have so far been under the 10MW range, as many projects are that size owing to quicker regulatory processes, but O’Cinneide said much larger assets of up to 200MW are in Gore Street’s sights. The two other US markets Gore Street is eyeing are the California CAISO market and the Northeast Corridor which falls under New England ISO‘s responsibility.

So what other markets does he see as attractive in Europe?

“Italy is an interesting market we’ve looked at for many years but haven’t yet done anything in. It has a high level of penetration of solar and wind and it’s not as connected to the other mainland Europe grids because of the Alps, which creates an opportunity. There is a series of auctions which the grid operator is looking at putting in place just like National Grid did in GB, with different products coming online that energy storage asset owners can participate in.”

“Greece is also putting in place some auctions which are similar to National Grid’s which of course are very interesting,” he added, before emphasising that Germany is the main market in Europe for the firm. Greece just last week announced plans to double its energy storage 2030 target to 3GW and could launch a tender for projects totalling 800-900MW in September this year.

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Ja Kao

Fengate Asset Management has closed on a new development partnership with 42 Renewables and launched Fengate Distributed Generation Partners. The new platform is focused on acquiring, developing, constructing and operating distributed generation (DG) solar, DG solar plus battery storage and DG battery storage projects. Target market segments include community solar; municipal, university, school district and hospital; commercial and industrial; and small utility-scale projects.

Fengate’s development partner in Fengate Distributed Generation Partners is 42 Renewables, led by Ja Kao, most recently president and CEO of Onyx Renewable Partners, where she built a national DG solar platform. Kao also serves as a board member for the American Council on Renewable Energy.

“We are focused on building Fengate Distributed Generation Partners into a top 10 DG solar development company with a proven development team led by Ja,” says Greg Calhoun, managing director of infrastructure investments at Fengate. “The DG market is fragmented and growing, and we are excited to deliver on our targets.”

“We are thrilled to begin this new partnership with Fengate and look forward to creating a company that contributes meaningfully to the goal of building accessible clean energy for all stakeholders,” adds Kao.

Fengate is managing this partnership on behalf of its infrastructure investors, including an investment fund owned by the LiUNA Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada.

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LG Energy Solution Wroclaw production plant in Poland. By 2025, LG ES plans to have 520GWh annual production capacity, 22% of which will be in Europe. Image: LG Energy Solution Wroclaw.

Ongoing supply chain challenges and the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine have affected the quarterly revenues of LG Energy Solution.

This morning, the downstream arm of LG Group’s battery business made its first-ever quarterly earnings results announcement since going public through an IPO just after the start of this year. It noted a “slight drop” in Q1 2022 revenues, which were down 2.2% from the previous quarter.

The rising costs of raw materials, the global semiconductor shortage as well as further supply chain disruptions caused by the violent conflict in Eastern Europe and COVID-19 lockdowns were the reasons given, although the South Korean company still logged KRW258.9 billion (US$200 million) operating profit for the quarter and said demand for its products remains steady.

It also had to make some product recalls during the quarter, which affected its margins, thought to refer largely to activities in the electric vehicle (EV) space but the company has made some recent voluntary recalls of home energy storage system products in the US and Australia.

Commodity market conditions have been “unfavourable” LG Energy Solutions said, referring to nickel, lithium and cobalt prices that have risen sharply – various sources have identified a rise in the cost of lithium carbonate, a key raw material in the production of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, of about 500% in the past year or so.

Nonetheless, the company achieved an operating margin for the quarter of 6% with total revenues at KRW4.34 trillion and is targeting actions it can take that will enable it to shore up margins for the year in the face of those challenges.

Energy-Storage.news has already reported on long-term deals LG ES has struck with upstream suppliers such as a six-year contract for “sustainably sourced” lithium with supplier Sigma Lithium, another deal for ‘zero carbon lithium’ from startup Vulcan Resources and a deal to off-take recycled nickel from Li-Cycle.

LG ES will use long-term supplier deals and strategic equity investments – such as the US$25 million it has committed to invest in Li-Cycle – to ensure its supply chain robustness, the company said.

In the shorter term, the range of materials added to its cost-pass through mechanisms in contracts with customers will be expanded: as well as lithium, nickel and cobalt costs which are already linked to raw materials prices, LG ES will index copper, aluminium and manganese costs.

Investment in productivity, product safety

A full-year sales target of KRW19.2 trillion has been set and about KRW7 trillion will be invested to increase LG ES’ annual production. By the end of this year, it will be capable of manufacturing 200GWh of batteries annually and by the end of 2025, that will leap to 520GWh, the company claimed.

Production facilities in North America will overtake Asia as LG ES’ biggest manufacturing base – by 2025, 41% of that 520GWh capacity will be in North America, 37% in Asia and 22% in Europe.

It is also implementing data-driven improvements to its production lines, including increased automation. Other investments include work to reduce the risk of thermal runaway propagation in LG ES pouch cells, which are the type typically expected to be found in stationary energy storage solutions the company makes or supplies to. LG ES also wants to implement advanced fault detection for defects in batteries, while there will also be investments in next-gen cathode materials research.

With the acquisition of NEC Energy Solutions, the former energy storage system (ESS) arm of Japan’s NEC Corporation, LG Energy Solution had said a few months ago that it seeks more active involvement in the downstream battery storage sector. No further announcements of activities in that direction were given by the company in its latest results release.

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The Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Utah. Image: Advanced Clean Energy Storage I/Mitsubishi Power Americas.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) has committed US$504 million to a 300GWh hydrogen storage project in Utah and another US$107 million to a battery graphite production facility in Louisiana.

The DOE has offered a conditional commitment for a US$504.4 million loan guarantee to the Advanced Clean Energy Storage Project in Delta, Utah, which broke ground this Spring and has several backers and developers including Mitsubishi Power Americas.

It was invited to apply for a loan last year shortly after the LPO was re-opened, having lain dormant during the Trump years.

Renewable energy will be converted through 220MW of electrolysers into up to 100 metric tonnes of green hydrogen a day when the project is completed in 2025. This will be stored in two huge salt caverns with a combined storage capacity of 300GWh.

The facility will supply the stored hydrogen to Intermountain Power Agency’s IPP Renewed Project, an 840MW combined cycle power plant also in Delta, powering 30% of the plant at its concurrent 2025 launch with plans to increase to 100% by 2045. However, in a recent interview with Energy-storage.news, Mitsubishi Power America’s Thomas Cornell said that could happen as early as 2030 or 2035.

“The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is one of the anchor tenants of the IPP Renewed facility, which will be on a DC line. The plan is, with all the curtailed renewables on that DC line, to move power into Utah to make the hydrogen and then during times that they need the excess power, to then take that power from Utah and ship it back to to Southern California,” Cornell said.

The green hydrogen hub is the largest planned globally and its proximity and connection to California, with its huge solar pipeline, is unsurprising considering large-scale green hydrogen needs substantial renewable power sources. The technology is at an early stage of commercialisation which makes commercial bank debt financing hard to come by. Premium subscription users of Energy-storage.news’ sister site PV-tech can read an analysis paper on the topic here.

The hydrogen hub has secured offtake agreements and all major contracts with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors, major equipment suppliers and operations and maintenance (O&M) providers, Mitsubishi Power said. Haddington Ventures is raising US$650 million from investors to help fund the project.

Black & Veatch is providing EPC services for the energy conversion facility while Mitsubishi Power is providing the hydrogen equipment integration including electrolysers, gas separators, rectifiers, medium voltage transformers, and distributed control system. NAES Corporation will provide O&M services while WSP handle EPC management services for the development of two salt cavern storage facilities.

The DOE LPO has also offered a conditional commitment of US$107 million to Syrah Technologies to expand its Syrah Vidalia Facility in Louisiana. The facility produces graphite-based active anode material (AAM) for EV batteries and has secured an offtake agreement with Tesla for the majority of its output.

It expects the expansion to enable the facility to produce enough AAM for 2.4 million EVs by 2040.

The commitment is the first from the LPO’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program in more than a decade. The DOE said it builds on Biden’s recent enactment of the Defense Production Act to secure critical materials for batteries including graphite.

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Rendering of a 200MWh BESS in development by Queensland state government-owned power company CS Energy. Image: CS Energy.

A peaker plant in project in Queensland, Australia, which would have relied on 1,000MW of gas generation will instead use just 150MW of turbines and lean on large-scale battery storage to fill the gap.

Queensland’s state Planning and Environment Court (P&E Court) last week gave development approval to the proposal’s radical amendment for project owner Quinbrook Asset Management.

Quinbrook acquired the Lockyer Energy Project, near Gatton in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley region, back in 2009. The idea was to help replace local reliance on coal-fired generation to provide with something cleaner.

At the time, that meant adding peaking capacity with gas turbines. Peaker plants run only at times of high electricity demand, which means that they generally have a low capacity factor – in many instances they are only called into action for about 10% of the entire year, each year.

Although the original application for the Lockyer project which was acquired from developer Westlink was eventually approved in 2014, law firm Thynne & MacCartney said it represented Quinbrook at the Queensland P&E Court on 22 April seeking approval for the amendment – and got it.

Lockyer will now include 150MW of gas turbines, with an 850MW battery energy storage system (BESS). The megawatt-hour (MWh) capacity of the BESS was not mentioned in a Thynne & MacCartney announcement, but it is likely to be in the range to provide four-hours duration.

The hybrid gas-BESS solution would export energy for immediate use as well as store electricity for export at times of high demand. The law firm noted that when the Lockyer project was originally conceived, such an option would not have been considered feasible, but things have quickly changed in terms of the economics as well as technologies involved.

The turbines which will be used will also be more advanced than those proposed in the original planning application, meaning they will be faster to start up and more fuel-efficient.

Recently-published research by Australian solar energy consultancy SunWiz noted that development of grid-scale battery storage has not taken off as quickly in Queensland as it has in some other Australian states like Victoria or South Australia. Queensland’s state government did however commit in March to invest in a 100MW/200MWh BESS project (rendering pictured above), which will be built by CS Energy, a power company it owns.

Economic rationale for fossil fuel plants diminishing

Research published last year by Australian national industry group Clean Energy Council argued the case for batteries and renewable energy as an economically viable as well as cleaner alternative to new gas peaker plants in the country.

Clean Energy Council expert Lilian Patterson told Energy-Storage.news at the time that it was “no longer economically rational” to build new fossil fuel-only peakers. Even since that interview was published last July, various rule changes in the National Electricity Market (NEM) have come into play, or been proposed, which further tip the scales in favour of fast-responding clean energy assets, particularly battery storage.

Anger was voiced in February as a 660MW peaker plant proposed in New South Wales (NSW) was given cross-party approval by politicians, albeit that approval was conditional on the plant running on 30% green hydrogen from its planned opening date in 2023, and then 100% by 2030. One expert said the project would be a “government-built white elephant”.

On a related note, Energy-Storage.news reported a few days ago that in New York, US, public utility New York Power Authority (NYPA) is seeking proposals to adapt a fleet of peaker plant sites in its service area to instead host battery storage systems.

A study commissioned by NYPA found that by 2030, if not before, four-hour duration BESS assets could effectively play the role of providing peaking power just as well as fossil fuel plants, at lower economic, social and environmental cost.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the US, Primergy, a developer in Lockyer project owner Quinbrook’s portfolio, closed US$1.9 billion financing on Gemini, a large-scale solar-plus-storage project in Nevada, Energy-Storage.news reported yesterday.

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