Featured in A Teutonic shift – 02-2018

South Australia’s big battery delivers

Utility-scale storage: The 100 MW Hornsdale Power Reserve was delivered by Tesla in under 100 days – a good thing as the company would’ve picked up the tab if it had failed to do so. But the project is also delivering grid services and demonstrating arbitrage trading at a pace and scale that is changing minds about the potential of utility-scale storage and the role of synchronous generation on Australia’s National Electricity Market.
More than 3 GW of battery energy storage is forecast to be deployed in 2018, but uncertainty over supply constraints — and potential cost increases for Li-ion batteries — may create unexpected challenges. | Image: Neoen

“This summer there have been plenty of these events,” says Dylan McConnell, a researcher at the Australian German Climate and Energy College in Melbourne. “Actually, I think one just happened while we’ve been on the phone.”McConnell has been monitoring and studying the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) since 2011. The event he was talking about …

pv magazine
This article is part of pv+
Subscribe digitally to unlock exclusive investigative reporting, expert insights, in-depth analysis, and premium background coverage. Your subscription also includes full access to the digital edition of our magazine.