A world first renewable energy project has taken its first steps in Australia, with big-name companies Vestas, Tesla, and Windlab backed by Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation partnering on a $160 million, 60 MW hybrid wind, solar, and energy storage project.
A flurry of announcements were published Thursday confirming the development of a 60 MW (megawatt) hybrid wind, solar, and energy storage by Australia’s international wind energy company Windlab. The AUD$160 million Kennedy Energy Park set to be built in central north Queensland as a joint venture between Windlab and Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation of Japan.
Kennedy Energy Park will be the first wind, solar, and storage hybrid generator connected to Australia’s national electricity network via a single connection point. It also serves as an industry-leading project demonstrating the complementary nature of the three technologies and proving their ability to work together. Vestas — who will provide the wind turbines for the project — describes the project as a “world first” of its kind.
The Kennedy Energy Park will consist of 43.2 MW worth of wind, made up of twelve Vestas V136, 3.6MW turbines; 15 MW worth of AC, single-axis tracking solar; and a 4 MWh Li Ion battery storage provided by Tesla.
Upon completion, Kennedy will be able to generate approximately 210,000 MWh of electricity per annum, which is the equivalent of enough electricity to supply over 35,000 average Australian homes.
[Read more here]
I estimated that they might need 3 hours of storage, but in fact they will have only about 10 minutes' worth. Although the battery storage is enough to stabilise short-term fluctuations in output, it's not enough to provide the "load shifting" needed for the evening peak in demand. I presume that the cost of battery storage remains a limiting factor. To provide true baseload, they will need more storage, to wit, 72 MWh. However, the new Kidston pumped hydro storage in N Queensland (a couple of hundred k's west of Kennedy) will have 2000 MWh of storage (more on that in a later post)
(As an aside, the last paragraph in the quote above suggests a daily household use of electricity of 16.4 kWh, a tad higher than my previous estimate of 15.9 kWh. The shorter-range Tesla Model 3 will have a 50 kWh battery pack or 3 days' worth of power for the average Ozzie house. The Tesla home battery, the Powerwall, has 13.5 kWh of storage, or enough to cover 19 hours of demand. I suspect that most of the battery storage in Australia will initially be behind the meter)
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