One big battery revolutionises renewable energy
South Australia's Hornsdale Power Reserve, currently a 100 MW/ 129 MWh battery, is unique
not just because it is the world's largest lithium-ion battery system but because it was
conceived and constructed in record-breaking time.
It addresses specific technical and market needs in the South Australian network, providing a
targeted contribution to the state's objective of ensuring reliable, affordable, and clean
power for South Australian consumers.
Aurecon advised the Government of South Australia throughout all phases of the original
project definition, specification, procurement, and execution through to final testing.
This included assessment and stakeholder engagement on how the battery's unique
capabilities could best be deployed to meet key government objectives, and on the
development of the formal operating protocol for the facility.
In the wake of the Hornsdale Power Reserve's success,the Australian Energy Market Operator
has reported an unprecedented growth in energy storage registration and connection
applications. The project has built confidence in the ability of such large storage schemes to
be successfully integrated into the electricity network and markets.
After one year in operation, Aurecon produced a report analysing the performance of
Hornsdale Power Reserve and highlighted that the use of similar fast response systems could
significantly improve the reliability, affordability, and sustainability of energy across Australia.
A new report released in February 2020 further demonstrated the market benefit of the
Hornsdale Power Reserve to the National Electricity Market; reducing the cost of Frequency
Ancillary Services by approximately $116M in 2019.
The 2020 report also provided an analysis of the major network outage in Victoria on 16
November 2019 which resulted in the South Australian region of the National Electricity
Market becoming "islanded" or separate from the rest of the national electricity grid.
The project has demonstrated the ability of such large storage schemes to be successfully
integrated into the electricity network and markets. It has provided substantial support to the
electricity network and has delivered more than AU $150 million in electricity cost savings in
its first two years of operation.
Source: https ://www .aureco ngrou p.com/pro jects/energy/sa-gov-cl ean-energy-tra nsition
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