AGL to install big battery at Torrens Island Power Station
Built in the ’60s, the mighty Torrens Island Power Station A has kept the lights in SA for decades. Now, as its gas flames come to an end a new force will be unleashed – a big battery in the city.
SA News
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In a sign of the irreversible change to the electricity system, South Australia’s biggest power supplier, AGL, will install a big battery in Adelaide, right in the heart of its gas-fired generators on Torrens Island.
The battery – about the same size as the world’s biggest battery in Jamestown – will be built as AGL starts closing down its ageing Torrens Island Power Station A.
“At the end of the day, consumers will benefit,” AGL chief operating officer Markus Brokhof said.
“We want to be a driver of the energy transition. Grid-scale batteries make a lot of sense in this context. We believe in renewable energy.
“But we also have a commitment to our power plant sites – we want to have a future for Torrens.”
AGL has ramped up its commitment to transformation, including linking executive bonuses to achieving goals to slow climate change.
Speaking this week as the company announced an after-tax profit of $1bn, managing director Brett Redman said AGL was moving away from carbon-intensive, big plants to a carbon-neutral portfolio.
“Market and economic conditions may have grown more challenging, but the imperative to change as the energy industry transitions from old models is not going away,” he said.
AGL, which has expanded into telephony and broadband, aims to have 20 per cent of its revenue from clean energy or carbon neutral products by 2023-24, up from 11 per cent now.
Mr Brokhof said the Torrens Island battery would bring down prices by supplying power during peak demand, allowing excess wind energy to be stored rather than wasted and providing ancillary services which enhance stability.
“It would have a macro economic effect,” he said.
AGL has opened up a competitive tender for the battery which would be “in the vicinity of 150MW” – the size of the expanded Tesla battery owned by Neoen at Jamestown.
Other big batteries operate at Lake Bonney in the South-East, Dalrymple on Yorke Peninsula and some wind farms such as Lincoln Gap near Port Augusta.
Businessman Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance plans to build a battery in Port Augusta, called the Playford.
AGL said job creation numbers and costs were yet to be determined but a target of 18-24 months has been set.
“SA is a very important market for us,” Mr Brokhof said.
“We want to play a role in the future, firming up renewables.
“I don’t think we’ll invest any more in large-scale, baseload power stations.”
AGL had intended to start closing units of the older Torrens Island A last year but kept them going to shore up supply last summer.
Mr Brokhof said AGL was in negotiations with the State Government now on the closure, possibly as early as next month.
The Torrens Island Power Station B, built in the ’70s, and the adjoining Barker Inlet Power Station, which was commissioned last year, will continue operating.
AGL has lodged a scooping report with the NSW Government for a battery at the site of the Liddell Power Station, which it will close despite Federal Government pressure.