Solar developer Lightsource bp has sold a 1GW operational solar PV portfolio, with options to build 800MW of co-located battery storage, to Australian-headquartered renewable energy company Aula Energy.
The portfolio consists of five projects – the neighbouring Wellington (200MW) and Wellington North (400MW) projects in New South Wales, the West Wyalong (107MW) facility elsewhere in New South Wales, the Woolooga plant (210MW) in Queensland and the Wunghnu project (90MW) in Victoria – with a total combined capacity of 1,037MW.
Each of these solar PV projects have the option to develop a co-located battery energy storage system (BESS) totalling 800MW.
This represents Aula Energy’s first operational portfolio across Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM), which spans Australia’s eastern and southern states and territories.
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Aula has a total project pipeline of 4GW, encompassing wind, solar PV and BESS, and Adam Pegg, COO for Asia-Pacific at Lightsource bp, said that Lightsource too has started to prioritise projects with a BESS component.
“Our strategy in the Asia-Pacific region has evolved significantly since these projects were conceived and we are now focused on developing hybrid renewable projects that combine onshore solar and wind with battery storage to deliver firm, flexible and low-cost energy,” said Pegg.
While the majority of the portfolio that has changed hands consists of standalone solar PV projects, the Wunghnu project includes a co-located BESS facility.
The addition of BESS projects to renewable energy generation facilities is becoming increasingly popular in Australia, where the tumbling costs of batteries have made co-location an increasingly attractive investment opportunity.
Sahand Karimi, CEO of OptiGrid, an Australian battery optimisation and trading intelligence platform, told PV Tech Power earlier this year that “battery storage costs have reduced substantially in the past 12-18 months, reducing the cost burden of adding storage to the design.”
The appetite for storage also comes from increased curtailment across Australia’s energy system, with record-high curtailment figures reported in the country’s National Electricity Market (NEM) in 2025, which constitutes a year-on-year increase of more than 60%.
As a result, this year has already seen a number of solar-plus-storage projects advance across the country, including ones from the Tonic Group and Green Gold Energy.
This article first appeared on our sister site PV Tech.
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