The second Renewable Energy Target auction held by the government of Victoria in Australia has been won by six solar PV projects, four of which include battery storage.
Supporting the state’s target of reaching 40% renewable energy by 2025, Victorian energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio announced the wins yesterday, claiming the projects will support the creation of 920 jobs and stimulate AU$1.48 billion (US$0.95 billion) investment into the local economy.
The six auction winners will add a total of 623MW of solar PV capacity, as well as 365MW/600MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS), with the batteries helping to add dispatchability to the output of the four solar farms they will be paired with.
The battery storage will contribute to the state reaching its target of deploying 2.6GW of energy storage by 2030, and D’Ambrosio noted that the 600MWh of capacity is equivalent to 1.5x that of the 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery, currently both the state and country’s biggest BESS.
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However, as reported by Energy-Storage.news in September, the Labor Party, campaigning to get re-elected in late November under the leadership of state Premier Daniel Andrews, has pledged to up the energy storage target to 6.3GW by 2035 if it stays in office. In doing so, the government also announced financial support for two large-scale standalone BESS projects equipped with grid-stabilising, or ‘grid-forming’ advanced inverters.
To read the full version of this story and see a table of winning projects, visit PV Tech.
