Storage specialist Eku Energy is seeking federal approval for two new four hour batteries, one in New South Wales (NSW) and one near the site of an old coal mine in Victoria.
The Wongalea battery is one of five clustered around the Armidale substation, which is inside the New England renewable energy zone, and which the developer plans to link to via an underground 132 kilovolt (kV) cable.
All up, there are three other batteries with development applications underway or approved around the substation, according to the initial scoping report. There would have been four, but Neoen has pulled its planning application for the 100 MW / 200 MWh Earthorpe project.
Eku Energy expects to have the 300 megawatt (MW), 1200 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery in the market by 2028.
The Wongalea site, which is next door to a historic abattoir and backs onto a picturesque waterway, showed no signs of any ‘matters of national environmental significance’ (MNES), the plants and animals the EPBC process is set up to protect.
