Genesis Energy, a listed New Zealand generation, wholesale, and retail energy company, has started constructing a 100MW/200MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) on the country’s North Island.
The company confirmed it had kicked off construction of the BESS on 5 June. It will be located at Huntly Power Station in Waikato, a region that is home to the country’s largest river and lake.
The power station is the largest thermal power station in New Zealand, with a generation capacity of 1,200MW, making it the country’s single largest electricity generation site.
As previously reported by Energy-Storage.news, Saft has been selected as the BESS supplier. Saft will engineer the 100MW/200MWh Huntly BESS as a complete turnkey solution.
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This will be based on 70 of its ‘iShift’ lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery containers, combined with power conversion and control systems. The system is planned to come online in the third quarter of 2026.
Malcolm Jones, CEO of Genesis Energy, said the BESS will provide essential back-up to the national grid during peak demand, specifically cold winter mornings and evenings.
“We’ll be able to store electricity in the battery during times of high generation, and release it when it’s most needed,” Jones added.
Jones said the BESS is being developed to align with its Gen35 strategy, which aims to build a 400MW system by 2035 at Huntly Power Station. This is regarded as the first stage of the plan.
The BESS will become Saft’s third utility-scale BESS in the New Zealand market. One of these is the 100MW/200MWh system provided to state-owned energy company Meridian Energy, set to be developed near New Zealand’s northernmost city, Whangārei.
Tracey Hickman, chief wholesale officer at Genesis Energy, said Saft’s track record in delivering BESS projects in New Zealand played a role in Genesis Energy’s contracting them.
Construction on the Huntly BESS comes soon after Genesis Energy opened what it claims is the country’s largest solar PV power plant: the 63MWp Lauriston site, located west of Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island, near the Rakaia River in the Canterbury Plains area.
It sits upon land traditionally used for agricultural purposes, specifically sheep grazing. Genesis confirmed that these agricultural practices will continue on the site in what is known as ‘agrivoltaics’ or ‘agriPV’.
