Ahead of a March election, the South Australian Labor government has said it will increase its renewable energy target to 75% by 2025 and implement 750MW of “renewable storage” if re-elected.
The first large-scale solar and battery storage project to be connected to the grid in Australia has started providing power to 3,000 homes and businesses in Far North Queensland (FNQ) while forming a test case for deliberate ‘islanding’.
Energy storage in the state of South Australia has continued its prolific pace of development with the announcement of two new grid-scale projects and a sizeable commercial and industrial (C&I) installation.
Members of the public in South Australia are being given the chance to participate in creating the biggest ‘virtual power plant’ of solar PV and batteries the world has ever seen.
Chinese electronics and engineering company Huawei, which also manufacturers inverters for solar PV systems, is starting the supply of its FusionHome Smart Energy Solution, providing solar-plus-storage capabilities to the Australian residential market during the first quarter of 2018.
New Zealand’s small handful of advanced energy storage systems will be added to with the NZ$2 million (US$1.45 million) trial deployment of a grid-scale Tesla Powerpack 2 by energy generator and retailer Mercury.
The Australian Capital Territory, the country’s federal district and home of national capital Canberra, is supporting the planned roll-out of 36MW of customer-sited batteries by funding a further AU$3 million (US$2.39 million) in rebates.
French renewable energy developer and independent power producer Neoen, which together with Tesla recently delivered a 100MW / 129MWh grid-supporting battery system in South Australia, has just signed a “support agreement” with local authorities for its next big project in the country.
Hospitals, schools and railways in South Australia will be powered by an electricity retailer started up by billionaire steel trader Sanjeev Gupta, following the signing of an agreement between the state government and Gupta’s SIMEC ZEN Energy.
