SA’s biggest battery to be built on Torrens Island

A new giant battery the size of Adelaide Oval will soak up SA’s excess power during the day and deliver it back when needed at night.

Fifty jobs are being created to build South Australia’s biggest battery on a site alongside the Torrens Island Power Station.

Site works are poised to start within weeks after AGL Energy contracted Wartsila, a global company headquarter in Finland, to build the battery.

Occupying a space the size of Adelaide Oval, the battery will have a capacity of 250 megawatts, equivalent to half the former Northern coal power station at Port Augusta and larger than the 150MW Hornsdale Power Reserve battery at Jamestown.

Consumers will ultimately be the winners, AGL chief operating officer Markus Brokhof said.

The battery will work in harmony with the high level of renewables in SA, stabilising frequency and security of supply.

“It has various elements which will directly benefit the consumer,” he said.

As well as these technical support services, it will trade alongside generators selling energy to shave off the top of the short, steep price peaks in South Australia.

At full power, it will discharge for one hour.

“We looked at a two-hour battery and a four-hour battery – and there could be an expansion to that in the future. But in the market at the moment a one-hour battery is the most efficient,” Mr Brokhof said.

Artist's impression of the $180 million grid-scale battery to be built for AGL at Torrens Island. The 250MW/250MWh battery will be built by Wartsila, with construction starting in 2021. Picture: AGL

It targets two crucial periods of the day in the market. In the middle of the day, SA generates so much solar that the excess has become a problem.

The battery will soak up some of this, charging up at very low prices.

As the sun goes down and solar power ends just as householders arrive home and crank up air conditioners and appliances, SA wholesale prices spike almost daily from about $20 per megawatt hour at noon to about $150 to $200.

It is expected the battery will be a big enough player in the market to bring down prices in the auction system at that point in time but still be profitable for AGL.

Mr Brokhof said Wartsila used a slightly different chemistry than the Tesla batteries used at Jamestown and Australia’s biggest battery which has recently been built in Victoria.

Wartsila Energy president Sushil Purohit said his company was attracted by the rapid growth of renewables in SA. Wartsila already partnered with AGL on the Barker Inlet Power Station on Torrens Island.

“The flexibility of our technology and the in-house experience we bring, can together be instrumental in maintaining a reliable and affordable electricity supply for SA consumers – both household and business – for years to come,” he said.

The battery is due to be operational by early 2023.