SA wind farm builder Neoen deputy CEO says big battery will cut power prices, stabilise system

SOUTH Australia’s big battery will bring down power prices and stabilise the state’s system, one of the brains behind it says.

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SOUTH Australia’s big battery will bring down power prices and stabilise the state’s system, one of the brains behind it says.

And the French see SA as a world leader on renewable energy, says Romain Desrousseaux, deputy chief executive officer of Neoen.

Neoen built the farm that powers the 100MW battery that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk promised to deliver to solve SA’s power woes.

The battery is now ready, well ahead of the 100-day deadline Mr Musk set, promising it would be free if he wasn’t delivered on time.

Tesla's giant lithium-ion battery has been installed in Jamestown ahead of the 100-day deadline set by Elon Musk.

Mr Desrousseaux conceded the timing was very tight but the battery would now smooth out SA’s wobbly power supply, and would eventually make power cheaper.

He said Mr Musk and his team were determined to get it done after SA’s catastrophic blackout triggered an ongoing discussion on renewable energy.

Speaking from Neoen’s French solar farm, the biggest in Europe, Mr Desrousseaux said renewables were the future, SA was ahead of the game, and “very few grids in the world” would have survived the events that sparked the statewide blackout.

He has been grappling with the “schizophrenic” nature of the political debate in Australia, with plans to scrap the Renewable Energy Target and introduce the National Energy Guarantee, but is optimistic in the end solar and wind will win.

“The issue for us has been more a grid issue than a renewable issue,” he said.

“Overall people see the efforts in places like SA and when you look at the quantity of renewable energy it’s quite impressive and quite good.”

Mr Desrousseaux will stand alongside Premier Jay Weatherill to flip the switch on the big battery around December 1.

Neoen says it will hit its target of 1GW of renewable energy in Australia next year — beating its 2020 deadline. Most of its $1 billion Australian investments so far are in SA.

However, future projects are under a cloud because of the turbulent political debate.

“It’s very hard for us to know what the NEG will bring from a renewable industry point of view. In this environment it’s very hard to invest,” Mr Desrousseaux said.