Projects totalling 3 GW proceed in large-scale battery round in Australia

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) on Wednesday said it has selected 3 GW of battery storage projects to proceed in the competition for up to AUD 100 million (USD 68m/EUR 67m) in grant funding.

ARENA announced its AUD-100-million Large Scale Battery Storage Round in December last year to incentivise grid-scale batteries with advanced inverters, also known as grid-forming inverters.

It has now shortlisted 12 projects with a combined capacity of 3050 MW/7000 MWh and a combined value of AUD 3.7 billion. These projects have been invited to submit full applications by July 20, with winners in the funding round to be announced in late 2022.

The 12 projects represent a total ARENA grant request of AUD 297 million. They were picked out of 54 expressions of interest (EOIs). The ARENA grants will back both new build projects and retrofits for existing batteries.

ARENA said that the shift to more inverter-based generation such as wind and solar in Australia requires new ways of providing system services to maintain grid stability.

(AUD 1 = USD 0.680/EUR 0.668)

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