Vic solar farm opts for Swiss BESS

Swiss company Energy Vault, which specialises in sustainable, grid-scale energy storage solutions, has announced a Notice of Award from Victoria’s Meadow Creek Solar Farm for the deployment of a 250 MW/500 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS). Developed by a local Meadow Creek landholder with support from renewable and environmental specialists, the 330 MW solar farm is located three hours north of Melbourne and aims to provide zero-carbon electricity to approximately 110,000 homes in the region.

Under this Notice, Energy Vault will immediately begin the advanced grid studies and modelling with technical advisor DNV, as required by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) for interconnected power systems in Australia’s eastern and south-eastern seaboard.

The Meadow Creek Solar Farm has completed extensive work on project feasibility, including grid capacity, and is currently progressing through detailed environmental and technical assessments to support the development application process. The BESS, being co-located with solar PV, will provide the resiliency and flexibility of charge and discharge, essential to shoring up renewable energy supply across the network as Australia adopts AEMO’s Integrated System Plan.

“We are delighted to be selected for this important project in Australia,” said Lucas Sadler, Vice President of Sales and Business Development, Asia & Pacific (APAC), Energy Vault.

“Over the past few months, the new Australian federal government has sent a strong mandate to the market to expedite the transition to renewable energy technologies supported by significant state government updates to their clean energy and emissions reduction targets. The Meadow Creek Solar Farm, hybrid solar PV and BESS development goals are well met with the market release of Energy Vault’s AC and DC block bespoke energy storage solutions for the Australian market. Importantly, this award builds on the significant progress Energy Vault has made over the past year as we bring our transformative energy storage solutions to this important market,” Sadler said.

Sadler, a 30-year veteran within the renewable energy, energy management and storage industry with extensive experience in engineering, procurement and delivery of both short- and long-duration energy storage systems, has since been building out the local infrastructures and customer support team in Australia given the strategic growth priority within the region.

“The solutions approach Energy Vault conducted with our team has been pivotal in our decision to select the Energy Vault energy storage hardware and software platform,” said Cameron Munro, Development Manager at Meadow Creek Solar Farm.

“Energy Vault’s high-energy density design, the option to work with both Central Storage Inverters or the new AC Block and the most advanced Energy Management Software — that enables multiple use cases, optimal economic dispatching and predictive maintenance — bring flexibility and further options when working with our financial and technical partners (DNV and AusNet Services).”

The award from Meadow Creek follows earlier announcements from Energy Vault of Gravity Energy Storage Systems (GESS) development on a multi-GWh basis in Australia with Korea Zinc’s subsidiary, Ark Energy, and a previously announced memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BHP. This further demonstrates the strategic priority of Australia as a key growth market for Energy Vault.

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