Australian energy retailer Origin Energy intends to build a 700MW battery storage system on the site of a coal power plant for which it has brought forward a planned retirement date by seven years. 

The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has received proposals for more than 34GW of solar, wind and energy storage for its South-West Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), more than 10 times the likely capacity of the site.

Western Australia’s state-owned electricity network operator is tendering for a “disconnected microgrid” project which could be replicated if successful, to cost-effectively give rural communities reliable and safe power supplies.

The state government of Queensland, Australia, has committed to a AU$14 million (US$10.5 million) project to refurbish and modernise a 570MW pumped storage hydroelectric plant.

Over a gigawatt of battery storage has been proposed in a plan to enable the wider rollout of renewables by Powercor, owner and operator of an electricity distribution network serving more than 800,000 customers in the Australian state of Victoria.

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.

Australian state governments of Western Australia and the Northern Territory have budgeted for measures to support renewables in the past few days, primarily through supporting batteries at large-scale, residential and community level.

“The bottom line is that this is a good business decision. We will get back our money in eight to 10 years at the current price of power. As the price of energy goes up, we’ll pay it back even quicker.”

Calgary-headquartered Eguana Tech has joined high-profile rivals like Tesla and Sonnen in targeting South Australia’s residential energy storage market, announcing it has become eligible for the state’s incentive programme.