New South Wales’ independent Consumer Trustee ASL has contracted six new long-duration energy storage (LDES) battery projects as a result of its latest tender for the NSW Roadmap.
The projects represent an additional ~1.17GW/12GWh of LDES capacity, taking the total of new storage capacity under contract in NSW to 30GWh—strong progress towards the 42GWh required by 2034.
This is the largest tender for storage capacity awarded in NSW to date, both in terms of total gigawatt capacity and number of contracted projects.
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Once operational, the additional storage will increase the reliability and energy security of the NSW electricity system. Several projects will also be capable of providing essential system services, including frequency and voltage control.
The contracted projects are:
- Armidale East BESS: 158MW/1,440MWh
- Bannaby BESS: 233MW/2,676MWh
- Bowmans Creek BESS: 250MW/2,414MWh
- Ebor BESS: 100MW/870MWh
- Great Western Battery: 330MW/3,500MWh
- Kingswood BESS: 100MW/1,080MWh.
All projects are expected to reach commercial operations before 2030.
ASL CEO Nevenka Codevelle said, “The tender process and the financial products we’ve designed are working as intended, and NSW is on its way to meet the high bar we’ve set for securing long duration energy storage.
“An important objective of the Roadmap was to bring forward investment in long duration storage, and that’s what we’re seeing.
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“It’s encouraging to see that proponents are continuing to utilise and value the flexibility of the LTESA product to suit their project’s needs. These agreements also deliver value to consumers by unlocking investment into additional capacity that can reduce price volatility.
“We’re about to see the first LDS projects contracted through these tenders come online. These are eight hour plus storage projects that would not otherwise have reached financial close or delivered energy for NSW consumers. It’s a very exciting time for the NSW energy transition.
“We update our development pathway and tender plan at least every two years, and as it currently stands we have two further long duration storage tenders scheduled—in the second quarter of 2026 and another in 2027. There are no guarantees of further LDS tenders beyond this point, so we expect competition to strengthen even further for these future tender rounds.”
