French independent power producer (IPP) Neoen has started operations at its 270MW/540MWh Western Downs stage one battery energy storage system (BESS) in Queensland, Australia.
The company’s regional entity, Neoen Australia, took to LinkedIn to reveal that the key milestones had been reached and will soon provide grid-forming capabilities for the grid and National Electricity Market (NEM).
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Construction on the Western Downs Battery started in late 2023. It is adjacent to a 460MWp ground-mount solar PV power plant, which makes up Neoen’s Western Downs Green Power Hub.
It is located in Queensland’s Western Downs region, 22km southeast of Chinchilla, a rural town famed for being the ‘Melon Capital of Australia’. Nearby, developer Akaysha Energy is also building a utility-scale battery storage project: the 150MW/300MWh Ulinda BESS.
A second BESS, stage two of the wider project, is expected to be operational sometime in 2026, increasing the overall storage capacity of the site to 540MW/1,080MWh.
As reported by Energy-Storage.news earlier this year, the second stage of the Western Downs BESS was confirmed via a 10-year “virtual battery” agreement with Australian energy major AGL Energy.
The agreement permits AGL to virtually charge and discharge up to 200MW/400MWh from the Western Downs BESS. This functionality allows AGL to simulate the operations of a grid-scale BESS, enabling it to charge or discharge whenever necessary.
Engineering company UGL is building both stages of the Western Downs BESS. Tesla supplied its Megapack solution for both phases of the BESS project.
Grid-forming with advanced inverters is a big topic for the Australian battery storage market. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing funding support for a wave of large-scale BESS projects that include smart power electronics equipment, including new builds and retrofitting them to existing projects.
Brookfield set to acquire Neoen in US$6.7 billion deal
Neoen is recognised as one of Australia’s largest renewable energy companies, with around 4.3GW of assets currently in operation or under construction. It is set to be taken over by Canadian asset manager Brookfield.
The takeover has required the groups to navigate unexpected hurdles to complete the deal. One such hurdle was specific to Victoria, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) objecting to the takeover in October 2024.
The ACCC released a statement at the time stating that the acquisition of Neoen would increase Brookfield’s chances of prioritising its own generation and storage assets.
Brookfield already holds a controlling interest in AusNet, which owns and operates most of Victoria’s electricity transmission network and parts of the electricity distribution network.
Since then, Neoen agreed to sell its Victoria portfolio for AU$950 million (US$616 million) to ASX-listed alternative asset manager HMC Capital. This was to comply with the ACCC’s request.
HMC Capital will secure Neoen’s 652MW operating portfolio, consisting of the 224MW Bulgana Green Power Hub, which includes a 20MW/34MWh BESS, the 128MW Numurkah Solar Farm, and the Victorian Big Battery.
Neoen’s 2.8GW development, including over 1.5GW and 1.3GW of BESS, will also be sold to HMC Capital. One of these development projects includes the second stage of the Victorian Big Battery, called the Moorabool BESS, which intends to add an additional 300MW/450MWh system to the project.
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