Wärtsilä to deliver 460MW energy storage to Australia's Origin Energy
Pamela Largue
Posted on: 21 April 2023
Wärtsilä has been selected by Origin Energy to deliver the first phase of the Eraring battery project in New South Wales| Australia.
Technology group Wärtsilä has been selected by Origin Energy to deliver the first phase of the Eraring battery energy storage project in New South Wales, Australia.
The 460MW (920MWh) project will be one of Australia’s largest energy storage projects and will be installed at Origin’s Eraring Power Station.
The Eraring Power Station is a coal-fired power plant that has been providing system flexibility for the past 35 years.
The contract with Wärtsilä is valued at 300 million euros ($330 million), the company's largest single energy storage contract to date and confirms equipment delivery from October 2023 to September 2024.
The Eraring battery will be connected to Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) and will provide much-needed system reliability as more variable renewables come online.
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According to Wärtsilä, their energy storage system (ESS) is designed with the potential to switch operation into grid-forming in the future, with the capability to supply a variety of system strength and system restart ancillary services.
Greg Jarvis, head of energy supply and operations at Origin Energy suggests that the Eraring site is strategically important due to the availability of connection infrastructure, which allows the company to deliver to major demand centres.
Also, the energy storage project is considered a next step in decarbonising Eraring, as the company is planning to exit coal-fired generation by as early as August 2025.
Håkan Agnevall, president & CEO, Wärtsilä, said in a statement: “With significant solar and wind resources, Australia is in a unique position to rapidly decarbonise its energy sector. Flexible capacity, provided by energy storage projects like Origin’s Eraring battery or grid balancing engines, will be vital to achieving that as the share of renewables increases."
According to the New South Wales government, the territory now has about 13,500MW of renewable capacity, which is around 53% of the total generation capacity in the state.
