Long Duration Storage With Lithium Batteries Gets a Boost With RWE Bid In Australia

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RWE Renewables, a German-based energy company, has now bagged a tender in New South Wales (NSW) in Australia to offer long-term energy storage systems. The company had earlier bid for its proposed eight-hour-long battery storage systems. However, by quoting lower than pumped storage, the firm has opened up a slew of possibilities on the utility of long-duration battery storage systems in large renewable energy projects. Until now, pumped storage has been considered the most cost effective option for long term energy storage at the lowest cost. 

While most of the battery storage systems last for around 2-3 hours in Australia, this new long-duration storage proposal has unveiled the potential of these storage systems, which, with this scale, could also take on some pumped storage and other alternatives. And that too with Lithium ion battery storage, an option that was considered absolutely unviable for long duration storage.

Interestingly, while the first competitive tenders were issued to selected solar parks and RWE’s battery storage system, no pumped hydro project made it to the list. The eight-hour-long duration battery storage system is likely to be Australia’s and the world’s longest-duration energy storage device. 

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Under the agreements of the tender, the firm would provide long-duration storage systems for project developers. “RWE’s Limondale battery energy storage system with a planned installed capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) and 400-megawatt hours (MWh) has been awarded. The project will be located next to RWE’s existing 249 MWac Limondale Solar Farm, with the project taking advantage of existing grid infrastructure. The project is working toward a final investment decision in the next 12 months,” RWE said in a media release. 

AEMO Services conducted this first competitive tender in NSW recently. “This is a highly successful outcome for the first Roadmap tender process: three renewable generation projects with a capacity of 1,395MW (4,009 GWh), alongside one long-duration storage lithium-ion battery project with a continuous discharge capacity of at least 8 hours, all of which have comprehensively demonstrated their financial value to NSW electricity consumers and benefits to their host communities,” AEMO Services Executive General Manager Paul Verschue said.

He added that the successful projects would deliver enough electricity to power 700,000 homes and represent more than $2.5 billion in total investment in NSW’s renewable energy infrastructure. 

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AEMO added that with the new tender, the power consumers of NSW would benefit from some of the lowest prices ever secured through simila`r tender processes in Australia.