CATL, the world’s biggest lithium-ion OEM, has partnered with renewable energy developer ACEnergy to supply 3GWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Australia.
The scope of the new partnership, revealed yesterday on LinkedIn by the Chinese manufacturer, will see CATL deliver supply and integration services for three BESS projects ACEnergy is developing in Australia.
This includes the Yanco project in New South Wales and the Joel Joel and Little River BESS projects in Victoria.
CATL confirmed it would provide the design, supply, testing, commissioning, and integration of BESS, medium voltage power station (MVPS), inverters, power plant controller (PPC), energy management system (EMS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), ensuring full grid compliance and world-class safety and performance.
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The 250MW/1,100MWh Yanco BESS, which will span an area of around eight hectares, will be located 5km south of Leeton, around 500km to the west of the state capital, Sydney. It will store energy generated from a nearby large-scale solar PV project and will cost around AU$250 million (US$160 million) to construct.
Meanwhile, CATL will supply two BESS projects in Victoria.
The 250MW/1,000MWh Joel Joel BESS, which changed from the initial 350MW/700MWh, is being developed around 23km east of Stawell in Victoria’s Wimmera region, famed for being home to the Grampians National Park.
Last year, the project was selected as one of the first BESS to be fast-tracked through Victoria’s new Development Facilitation Program.
This initiative, which was expanded last year to include renewable energy projects, aims to speed up the development of critical infrastructure projects in Victoria. Before its inclusion, projects had to pass through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which saw around 20% of these projects delayed by around two years.
The Joel Joel BESS will use grid-forming inverters to provide essential grid services, such as frequency regulation and peak load management, to ensure a stable electricity supply to the state.
The other battery storage project that CATL is set to supply is the 350MW/770MWh Little River BESS, which was also selected to be fast-tracked via the Development Facilitation Program pathway.
Little River is 44km southwest of Melbourne, the state capital. The BESS will be located on an 18-hectare land and connect directly to Ausnet’s existing 220kV network infrastructure.
Each of these battery storage projects will connect to the National Electricity Market (NEM), which spans Australia’s southern and eastern states, as well as the island state of Tasmania.
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