South Australia state-run firm SA Water plans to deploy 152MW of solar PV and 35MWh of energy storage over the next two years in order to reach its target of zero net electricity costs by 2020.

One of the final acts in office of outgoing South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill, whose Labor Party was voted out in elections last week, appears to have been inking a deal for another 100MW+ lithium battery facility.

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.

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.

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.

The government of the state of South Australia has named four utility-scale energy storage projects which it will support with grants toward the total cost of development.

Australian large-scale renewables investor Lyon Group has confirmed it is selling three projects under development, totalling 800MWh of energy storage and 545MW of PV generation capacity, in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.

Amidst experiencing Model 3’s “production hell”, launching a semi truck, a new Roadster and a portable battery pack, Tesla’s work on a 129MWh energy storage system in South Australia appears on track to be completed in time.

Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) will help finance the country’s first “unsubsidised large-scale grid-connected battery”, co-located with a wind farm in South Australia.