A 240MW/960MWh standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) in South Australia has entered commissioning, while construction has begun on a 281MW/843MWh DC-coupled solar-plus-storage project in Queensland.
The 960MWh Summerfield BESS is being delivered by e-STORAGE, the energy storage arm of Canadian Solar, under a turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.
e-STORAGE is supplying and integrating more than 200 SolBank 3.0 containers, with a long-term service agreement covering performance and operations.
The system is located in the Murraylands region near Mannum, 55km east of Adelaide, and will store excess wind and solar energy for supply at peak demand, supporting South Australia’s target of 100% net renewable energy by 2027.
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The customer is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The Danish institutional investor and developer acquired the project in 2022, made a final investment decision in September 2024, and began construction in early 2025.
In April, Palisade Investment Partners, an Australian infrastructure and renewables investor, agreed to buy CIP’s 100% stake through Intera Renewables, its Australian renewable energy platform, with the price not disclosed.
Intera is owned by Palisade’s funds, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the government-owned green bank, and the superannuation funds Aware Super and HESTA.
Summerfield is Palisade’s second large-scale storage investment, after the 500MWh Limestone Coast North BESS, which it bought in February 2025 for AU$460 million (US$322 million).
A 10-year offtake agreement with Origin Energy, a listed Australian energy retailer and generator, provides revenue certainty. The project was announced in November 2023 as a 240MW/480MWh system, and its energy capacity was doubled to 960MWh before construction began.
In April, energisation was expected in May 2026, with commercial operations scheduled for late 2026, and Palisade Integrated Management Services due to manage the asset once it is operating.
Construction begins on the Lower Wonga solar-plus-storage site
Gotion High-tech, an energy storage manufacturer, said construction has begun on the Lower Wonga project in Queensland, which combines a 380MWdc solar PV power plant with a 281MW/843MWh BESS.
Grid connection and commercial operations are scheduled for the end of 2028.
The project is being developed by Lightsource bp, a solar developer with more than 9.5GW of solar, wind and storage projects in development across Asia-Pacific, and the group broke ground near Gympie in south-east Queensland in June.
Gotion will deploy its Qianyuan Smart Energy Storage 5MWh system, which it said uses independently developed cells designed for a 25-year operating life and has obtained IEC certification and Australian grid-compliance approvals.
In July, US tracker manufacturer GameChange Energy was selected to supply its Genius Tracker 1P Terrain Following system for the site, chosen for its ability to reduce earthworks across variable terrain, as well as hail-stow and generation optimisation technology.
Gotion said the DC-coupled design is intended to capture surplus solar energy that might otherwise be curtailed and to reduce energy losses and described the project as among the largest DC-coupled solar-plus-storage developments under construction in Australia.
Lightsource bp has also signed a hybrid offtake agreement with Rio Tinto, the mining company, combining solar and BESS capacity to supply its Queensland operations, and the project has secured support under the Australian government’s Capacity Investment Scheme, which underwrites new dispatchable capacity in the National Electricity Market (NEM).
EPC contractor INTEC Energy Solutions awarded EPEC Group the grid connection contract, covering a 275/33kV substation and a 275kV overhead line to the Woolooga substation of Powerlink, Queensland’s state-owned transmission network operator.
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