EnergyAustralia has taken delivery of the final battery storage units for its 50MW/250MWh Hallett BESS in South Australia, as construction continues at the site.
The Australian generator-retailer said in a LinkedIn post this week that the arrival was “an important milestone as construction progresses”, adding that “more milestones are ahead as Hallett takes shape.”
Once complete, the BESS is designed to provide up to five hours of storage, according to EnergyAustralia. The company thanked its own staff, the contractor Enerven, and the system integrator NHOA Energy for coordinating the safe delivery.
The post did not give a date for commercial operation. When EnergyAustralia reached financial close on the Hallett BESS in February, it said construction would begin within weeks and that commercial operations were expected by mid-2027.
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The BESS is being built alongside EnergyAustralia’s 235MW gas-fired Hallett Power Station in the Goyder region and will connect to the National Electricity Market (NEM) through the power station’s existing grid equipment. Planning approval is already in place for a second stage that would expand the site to 200MW/1,000MWh.
“This project shows how existing sites can play an important role in the energy transition,” Daniel Nugent, trading and transition executive at EnergyAustralia, said at financial close.
NHOA Energy is supplying the battery storage equipment and the inverters that form the project’s power conversion system (PCS), while Enerven is handling civil, electrical and construction works. Enerven was also balance of plant contractor for Revera Energy’s 150MW/300MWh Bungama BESS, which Wärtsilä brought online in June at Port Pirie.
Having one integrator deliver both the battery storage and the PCS contrasts with Alinta Energy’s 250MW/1,000MWh Reeves Plains stage one north of Adelaide, where CATL is supplying 194 battery units and Power Electronics 89 inverters.
NHOA, formerly Engie EPS and majority-owned by Taiwan Cement Corporation, has delivered in Australia before. It won a AU$155 million (US$109.1 million) contract in 2021 for a 100MW/200MWh BESS at the decommissioned Kwinana Power Station in Western Australia.
Hallett also secured support in 2024 under the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), which underwrites revenue for new dispatchable capacity.
The joint South Australia and Victoria CIS tender awarded 3,626MWh of energy storage across six projects (Premium access), 1,996MWh of it in South Australia. Hallett was listed at the time as a 50MW/200MWh, 4-hour project.
EnergyAustralia’s storage portfolio and the South Australian market
Hallett follows EnergyAustralia’s larger 350MW/1,400MWh Wooreen BESS in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, where Wärtsilä has completed delivery of all 1,038 Quantum units. Wooreen is targeting commercial operation in 2027, ahead of the Yallourn coal plant’s retirement in mid-2028.
EnergyAustralia sold a 50% stake in Wooreen to Thailand’s Banpu for around AU$700 million in July 2025, including an AU$110 million equity injection.
South Australia has also introduced a state-level contract for longer-duration BESS. Its first Firm Energy Reliability Mechanism (FERM) tender, run by ASL, awarded 15-year contracts to six BESS projects totalling 1,334MW/5,336MWh in May, including both stages of Neoen’s Goyder Battery. Contracted capacity must be able to dispatch for at least 8 hours during forecast reserve shortfalls.
AEMO’s Quarterly Energy Dynamics report for Q1 2026 showed that 4,445MW/11,219MWh of large-scale BESS had come online across the NEM since the end of Q1 2025. South Australia’s price spread widened to AU$328/MWh in the quarter, against AU$121/MWh across the NEM.
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