Developer ACEnergy has submitted a 400MW/1,760MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) proposed within the New England Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) to the Australian government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
The Gara BESS is set to be located around 9km east of the town of Armidale, around 483km north of Sydney, New South Wales. It will cover an area of around 13.5 hectares and include associated infrastructure within the EPBC application.
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ACEnergy confirmed it had secured the rights to the land in 2023. Development approval and grid connection approval are expected to take around 18 and 24 months, respectively. Once these have been secured, construction and commissioning of the site are anticipated to last 24 months. Once complete, the BESS will connect to the grid via the existing 330kV network infrastructure and provide strength and stability to the National Electricity Market (NEM).
The Gara BESS has also been classified as a State Significant Development (SSD) due to its electricity generating purpose and its investment cost exceeding the AU$30 million (US$18.8 million) threshold.
As previously noted, the BESS will be situated within the New England REZ, which is being developed in the northern part of the state. This REZ aims to deliver 8GW of additional network capacity, supporting renewable energy generation technologies such as solar PV and energy storage.
According to EnergyCo, the New England REZ is expected to attract more than AUS$24 billion in private investment by 2034, supporting over 6,000 construction jobs and 2,000 ongoing operational jobs.
ACEnergy’s head of grid, Joel Prata, will speak at the Energy Storage Summit Australia 2025, which our publisher, Solar Media, is hosting in Sydney on 18-19 March. Readers of Energy-Storage.news can access an exclusive 20% discount on tickets by following this link.
ACEnergy’s energy storage portfolio in Australia
ACEnergy has been active within Australia’s energy market for some years now and has a diverse portfolio of energy storage and renewable energy generation projects, namely solar PV, dotted across the country.
ACEnergy has several large-scale battery energy storage projects in development, including the Gara site. These are the 264MWh Apsley and 1,100MWh Yanco BESS, both located in New South Wales and the 550MWh Pine Lodge and 250MW Glenbrae BESS in Victoria.
Readers of Energy-Storage.news may well remember that the Yanco BESS was embroiled in controversy last year after the Leeton Shire Council rejected a voluntary planning agreement (VPA) offer submitted by the developer.
This was due to ACEnergy having submitted a VPA for a discounted amount totalling AU$730,000 over a five-year period. The traditional VPA, which, under Leeton Shire Council’s Section 7.12 Plan, amounts to 1% of the development cost, would require the developer to pay AU$2.5 million.
In August last year, ACEnergy saw its 350MW/700MWh Joel Joel BESS project in Victoria fast-tracked by the state government’s minister for planning, Sonya Kilkenny. It was processed under the new process in nine weeks. According to the project website, the development approval was estimated to take 18 months.
Developer Birdwood Energy saw a 1.8GWh BESS fast-tracked by the government last month via the same Development Facilitation Program. The initiative aims to speed up the development of critical infrastructure projects in Victoria.
