Energisation has begun at Waratah Super Battery, the energy storage project contracted as a ‘giant shock absorber’ for the grid in New South Wales, Australia.
The project’s developer, Akaysha Energy, announced today (2 September) that the first stage of energisation has been completed at the 850MW/1,680MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
The developer, which is backed by asset manager Blackrock, said that with the project’s 330kV substation also energised and Waratah Super Battery now being registered to participate in the National Electricity Market (NEM), commissioning work can now begin.
One of the world’s biggest BESS assets to date, construction of Waratah Super Battery began in May 2023, and it is scheduled to go into operation next August.
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The developer has in place a System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS) contract with transmission network provider Transgrid.
Under SIPS, Waratah Super Battery—and a number of other BESS assets around Australia—provide protection to the grid from things like bushfires or lightning strikes that could cause sudden outages.
State-owned Energy Corporation of New South Wales (EnergyCo) had been ordered in 2022 to competitively procure the contract which Akaysha ultimately won, with 700MW/1,400MWh of the asset’s output and capacity acting as what the government of New South Wales called a ‘shock absorber’ in the event of power surges.
The Super Battery is being built on the former site of Munmorah Power Station, a 1,400MW coal power plant which was demolished in 2018, and the Waratah Super Battery is seen as an important step in replacing the system services as well as energy and power the fossil fuel plant provided.
Univers Bazefield appointed as performance manager for Waratah Super Battery
At 850MW, the project is currently the single biggest Dispatchable Unit Identifier (DUID) in the NEM, Akaysha Energy chief engineer Nick Finch noted. The project got Generator Performance Standard (GPS) clearance to connect to the grid in April.
Akaysha’s partners on the project include EPC Consolidated Power Projects, BESS supplier and integrator Powin, and power conversion system (PCS) manufacturer eks Energy—which was until a while ago owned by Powin but was sold to Hitachi Energy.
In other news related to the project, renewable energy asset and portfolio management software company Univers Bazefield has been appointed as asset performance manager to Waratah Super Battery.
Norway-headquartered software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Bazefield was acquired in 2016 by Envision, now known as Univers.
Bazefield will serve as the data platform and central monitoring solution for the Waratah system, and in addition the software will also be Akaysha’s central asset monitoring software across its Australian portfolio.
“Their extensive experience in the battery industry and their robust asset monitoring solutions were key factors in our decision,” Akaysha Energy asset performance manager Dr Richard Gabler said.
“Bazefield’s platform provides us with the security and comprehensive oversight needed to efficiently manage our growing battery storage portfolio.”
The developer’s other big projects in a claimed 10GW pipeline include another NSW project slightly smaller than Waratah Super Battery at 1,660MWh, on which Akaysha closed a AU$650 million (US$440 million) financing deal in July, and a 205MW/410MWh project in Queensland on which construction began about a month ago.
