ACEN Australia awards contracts for 200MW battery project

Renewable asset developer ACEN Australia has awarded Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) contracts for its New England 200MW/400MWh battery storage project.

Announced in the beginning of May, the battery energy storage system (BESS) will have its construction led by energy storage developer Energy Vault and will be located in New South Wales.

The project is set to commence this year and be operational by 2026. According to ACEN in a release, once finished the project will be one of the nation’s largest co-located solar and battery energy storage facilities, providing stored energy to the power grid when it is needed.

Consisting of a 50MW/100MWh and 150MW/300MWh batteries, the BESS will be charged and discharged daily, designed to dispatch stored renewable energy at peak consumption hours to help meet high demand during New South Wales’ peak load hours.

The project marks another milestone for ACEN Australia, co-located with its inaugural project, the 720MW New England Solar, which is a significant generator in the National Electricity Market (NEM). Located near Uralla, phase one of the solar site was completed in 2023. Upon completion of Stage two, the site will generate a total of 1,800GWh of renewable electricity annually.

Australian based high voltage connection specialist EPEC Group has also been appointed to complete substation works as part of the battery and New England Solar Stage 2 developments.

Have you read:
How batteries help keep Texas lights on during extreme weather
How critical and emergency services can benefit from battery power

Grid forming inverters

Commenting in a release was ACEN Australia’s managing director David Pollington, who said the battery and its grid forming inverters are a game-changer for the NEM.

Said Pollington, “The New England BESS will be built using some of the most advanced grid-forming inverter technology which can provide system stability services that coal, hydro and gas generators currently provide.

“With NSW’s ageing coal fired generators due to close, large battery energy storage systems like this are critical for the successful transition to an electricity grid supplied by renewables.”

Specifically, the BESS deployments, developed under Energy Vault’s B-VAULT suite of battery energy storage solutions, will be coupled with a Siemens S120 inverter, which enables advanced grid support functionalities such as voltage and frequency ride-through, grid support during disturbances and reactive power control.

The use of the Siemens S120 inverter, combined with Energy Vault’s proprietary X-Vault integration platform and Vault-OS Energy Management System aims to allow for superior energy management capabilities.

The appointment of Energy Vault follows the signing in March this year of a Cooperation Agreement between ACEN Australia and Marubeni Asian Power Singapore committing both parties to work together on delivery of the BESS.

The 50-50 partnership has a projected investment of AU$250 million (US$166.1 million).

The New England BESS with its innovative inverter system is being built with the support of the NSW Government’s Emerging Energy Program.

The AU$75 million (US$49.8 million) programme provides grant funding to assist with the development of innovative, large-scale electricity and storage projects in NSW.

By reducing barriers to invest in emerging technologies, the Program hopes to support affordable, reliable and clean energy across the State.