While the Federal government of Australia resists public and political pressure to commit to net zero targets, the states of Victoria and Queensland have made progress in advancing plans for a large-scale standalone battery project and a wind-plus-storage plant respectively.

A grid-forming project in South Australia combining power electronics and battery storage to integrate wind and solar at a site near the end of a 120km 33kV transmission line is being replicated worldwide, the Head of Grid Edge Solutions at Hitachi ABB Power Grids has said.

A 50MW / 75MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Western Sydney, Australia, will receive AU$21.5 million (US$15.35 million) in assistance from the federal and state governments towards its total cost of AU$61.9 million.

The first phase of a 1,000MW behind-the-meter virtual power plant (VPP) is expected to begin deployment in Australia as soon as the state of Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdown is over.

The locations for three ‘community battery’ projects have been announced by Australian electricity distribution company Ausgrid, set to be deployed next year.

Pumped hydro project, Oven Mountain, has been declared to be Critical State Significant Infrastructure by the NSW Government.

Energy Renaissance’s AU$28 million lithium-ion battery factory is to be located in Tomago in the Hunter region of Australia.

Mobile energy solutions provider Aggreko has completed one of the largest renewable energy microgrids in the world, at the Granny Smith gold mine in Western Australia.

The government of Western Australia has issued a Request for Information (ROI) for parties interested in working on a 100MW / 200MWh battery energy storage project at the site of a decommissioned power station.

The past few days have seen various announcements across the lithium-ion battery production value chain in Europe, Australia and the US.