Australian renewable energy developer Ark Energy has submitted plans for a 2,000MWh wind-plus-storage project to the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission (IPC).
The Bowmans Creek Wind Farm project will be located in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, 12km east of Muswellbrook, a rural town that is well known for its coal mining and horse breeding industries.
Muswellbrook itself has recently become a hub for clean energy projects, with several large-scale projects, such as a 3.2GWh pumped hydro site being developed by AGL and a 270MWh solar-plus-storage project being developed by OX2.
The Bowmans Creek Wind Farm would be developed across two stages. The first stage aims to build 54 wind turbines, generating 335MW of clean energy, coupled with a 250MW/2,000MWh 8-hour duration BESS.
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The second stage would then add a further 21 wind turbines, bringing the overall generation capacity to 455MW.
Ark Energy, the regional entity of Korea Zinc, a South Korean company specialising in non-ferrous metal smelting, received approval from the IPC in February 2024. However, it has modified its initial stage one development application to add the 2,000MWh BESS to the project.
A separate development application is being sought for the second stage of the Bowmans Creek Wind Farm. Environmental and technical studies for the environmental impact statement (EIS) are currently underway for this stage, and Ark Energy expects to lodge the application in 2026.
The project has already received approval from the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
Ark Energy confirmed the BESS would be used for “efficient storage of excess energy generated during peak production for later use during low production periods or high demand, improving reliability and reducing energy costs.”
Readers of Energy-Storage.news may be aware that Ark Energy is developing another co-located 8-hour duration BESS in New South Wales.
In August 2024, the developer submitted a development application for the Richmond Valley solar-plus-storage project, which couples a 500MW solar PV power plant with a 275MW/2,200MWh BESS.
At the time, the project was said to be located close to existing transmission infrastructure and had been described as a “great location for solar energy”.
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