In order to address intermittency in its grid, the South Australian Government has introduced a AU$50 million (US$36 million) Grid Scale Storage Fund (GSSF) to help accelerate the deployment of new large energy storage projects, including pumped hydro, hydrogen, gas storage, solar thermal, bioenergy and battery storage.

Australian Vanadium (AVL) and VSUN Energy have signed an agreement to work with the Future Batteries Industry Cooperative Research Centre (FBI CRC) on developing vanadium extraction and processing skills, particularly in Western Australia.

Contruction of a Tesla powerpack battery at the 60MW Gannawarra solar farm in Victoria, Australia – said the be the first battery storage system that has been retrofitted to an existing solar farm in the country – has been completed ahead of schedule.

A 30MW / 30MWh battery energy storage system has been inaugurated with a ceremony in Victoria, Australia, with one project partner describing the switching-on as “a real watershed moment in the continuing modernisation” of the state’s energy supply.

Australia is to trial using solar and wind power to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, with the hydrogen then being used for long-term energy storage in the Sydney gas network.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has partnered with Monash University and technology provider Indra Australia to trial a microgrid as a first step to powering Monash’s Clayton campus entirely with renewable energy by 2030.

With a view to creating a mass market design for vanadium flow batteries, Australia’s Protean Energy will deploy a 4MWh battery energy storage project in South Korea that will be researched over eight years of operation.

juwi Renewable Energy and the University of Queensland signed off on an agreement on 30 August 2018 to develop a PV / flow battery hybrid power solution at the Heron Island Research Station located in the Great Barrier Reef.

Subsidies will be available to residents of South Australia who want to purchase home battery systems from next month, while Sonnen looks set to open up a manufacturing and shipping centre in the state.

The Australian state of Victoria has been given a “taste of what’s possible” with the launch of utility Origin Energy’s first virtual power plant (VPP) project to date.