Australia's Northern Territory and Hitachi Energy collaborate on a large-scale battery energy storage system project

　　Hitachi Energy has won a tender to supply a large battery energy storage system (BESS) in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Minister of Renewable Energy and Energy of the Northern Territory (NT) Eva Lawler described the contract award as "a major step forward in achieving a 50% renewable energy plan by 2030."

　　(Hitachi Energy’s 30MW/8MWh Dalrymple BESS project in South Australia)

　　The 35MW BESS will save costs for the Darwin-Katherine power system network and provide services to approximately 150,000 customers. The battery energy storage system (DK BESS), called Darwin-Katherine, will increase flexibility and improve the reliability of power supply, and it will directly replace generator sets that provide emergency power generation during power system events.

　　Although DK BESS will cost about 45 million Australian dollars (32 million US dollars), it is expected to save about 9.8 million Australian dollars in operating costs each year, which means that the cost will be recovered in about five years.

　　Like several large-scale BESS projects across Australia, one of the main purposes of the system is to enable solar energy to be smoothly integrated into the grid. About one-sixth of Northern Territory households have rooftop solar energy. This ratio may be lower than that of other Australian states such as Western Australia and South Australia. Some statistics indicate that the ratio is close to one-half or one-third. In this way, battery storage will provide more capacity for homes and businesses in the area to use solar energy.

　　DK BESS will be built at Territory Generation's Channel Island power station. It will continue to operate, using Hitachi Energy's virtual synchronous motor technology to provide inertia to the system and eliminate the variability of solar power generation.

　　Although Hitachi Energy is a new brand launched in October this year, its predecessor brand Hitachi ABB Power Grids actually started Australia's first battery or virtual synchronous motor project in Dalrymple, South Australia several years ago. Maxine Ghavi, Head of Grid Edge Solutions at Hitachi Energy, said not long ago that the DK BESS project can provide other parts of the world with learning about the role that BESS can play in stabilizing the power grid.

　　"Renewable energy is the direction of development. The winning of the BESS project is a big step towards our goal of achieving 50% renewable energy by 2030. It is the cornerstone of our Darwin-Katherine system plan so that we can obtain Clean and efficient energy will help achieve the goal of renewable energy and net zero emissions." Northern Territory Minister of Renewable Energy and Energy Eva Lawler mentioned that the goal of this cooperation is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

　　The project is powered by Hitachi Energy's core technology. Like several other large-scale battery projects at existing thermal power plant sites in Australia, it is expected to utilize existing infrastructure such as grid interconnection.

　　Lithium-ion battery (LIB) has become the main energy storage solution in modern social life. Among them, lithium iron phosphate batteries are a perfect replacement for lead-acid batteries, and they are the first choice for grid-connected peak shaving, off-grid energy storage, photovoltaic energy storage, UPS, data center and other industries.

　　Solar power generation system with lithium battery energy storage system is a very promising clean energy.