Australia’s biggest battery—the Waratah Super Battery—is now online and performing its role as a shock absorber for the New South Wales electricity grid.
Commissioned by the NSW Government and delivered and operated by Akaysha Energy, the Waratah Super Battery is currently the world’s most powerful battery in terms of power and energy storage capacity.
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With a physical size of 850MW/1680MWh, the battery will provide a guaranteed continuous active power capacity of at least 700MW and a guaranteed usable energy storage capacity of at least 1,400MWh when fully operational later this year.
The Waratah Super Battery only takes two hours to charge and can discharge its full power capacity into the grid in a matter of seconds, which means during emergencies, the people of NSW will experience minimal disruption to their electricity supply.
While the primary role of the Waratah Super Battery is to supply the NSW electricity grid during emergency events, it’s also a control system that includes arrangements for paired generation services and upgrades to existing power lines.
Located at the former Munmorah coal-fired power station, approximately 100km north of Sydney, the Waratah Super Battery Project has four distinct components:
- A System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS) service to provide its guaranteed, continuous active power capacity.
- Paired generation services provided by a portfolio of generators across NSW that will provide technical services to support the SIPS.
- A SIPS communications system comprising of a software system and signalling equipment, operated by Transgrid in its role as the network operator. The system will detect contingencies and faults across the network and rapidly signal paired generators to decrease output and the battery to discharge, supplying power to customers.
- Network augmentations delivered by Transgrid include updates to existing transmission lines and upgrading a series of substations that are required to increase the network’s capacity and allow for the operation of the SIPS.
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Operating as part of a SIPS to increase the transmission capacity of the existing network, the Waratah Super Battery will allow more power to flow from existing generators to meet the needs of NSW families and businesses.
The oversizing of the battery allows for degradation of the battery over time, ensuring security of supply. It also enables Akaysha Energy to utilise the excess capacity to tap into additional revenue streams, putting downward pressure on the costs of the SIPS service provided to NSW customers.
