Hybrid wind and battery projects could cover off almost all of the energy generation and grid services currently provided by Australia’s remaining coal plants, but without the breakdowns or the pollution, and with a bunch of added extras coal plants can’t do.
Daniel Ryan, who is technical lead of future grid at Envision Energy, says the China-based company can “clearly see the value” of hybrid renewables power stations in Australia, where wind and battery energy storage could be integrated behind a single grid connection point.
While grid-coupled solar-battery hybrid projects are all the rage in Australia’s renewables development pipeline at the moment – highly prized for their numerous economic and technological advantages – the wind sector is playing catch-up on this trend.
Ryan says that while Australia has many “renewable power parks” and has also built have some of the world’s largest onshore wind farms, most of the operational wind and battery projects are what he describes as “un-orchestrated;” separate control systems, and “very simplistic.”
Given the lack of operating examples in Australia, Envision has built its own large-scale “living laboratory” in Chi Feng in China, to get a better understanding of what true, AC-coupled wind and battery energy storage systems (BESS) can offer a modern-day grid.
