Australia’s battery capacity will double this year as major projects come online, heightening pressure on the country’s fossil fuel power generators that are struggling to compete against soaring renewable energy generation.
With many large-scale projects set to be operational, utility-scale battery capacity will top 1.1 GW by the second half of 2022, Rystad expects.
Costs are declining and operators are being incentivised by energy arbitrage, which is storing energy when it is cheap and providing it when prices are high.
“This is the era of the utility-scale battery, but everyone is talking about hydrogen,” said Gero Farruggio, head of Australia and global renewables at Rystad Energy.
“Over the last 12 months, barring COVID, hydrogen has been grabbing all the headlines, but the reality is there has been this intense build-out of batteries.”
(ieefa.org, February 7, 2022)
