The Victorian Big Battery which recently went online is a good example of how battery storage is playing its part in “reshaping” Australia’s energy sector. Image: Victoria State government.
Australian energy retailer Origin Energy intends to build a 700MW battery storage system on the site of a coal power plant for which it has brought forward a planned retirement date by seven years.
The economics of operating coal generation are rapidly diminishing as solar, wind and storage are outcompeting the fossil fuel in the National Electricity Market (NEM) and company intends to exit coal entirely with the retirement of its 2,880MW Eraring coal plant in New South Wales (NSW).
Origin Energy has submitted notice to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) that it wants to close Eraring down by August 2025, not 2032 as originally planned. Three and a half years’…