To speed up the energy transition through increased use of battery energy storage and renewable energy, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced AUS$100 million (US$72.5 million) in funding to support technology innovation and implementation.
The funding will be issued through ARENA’s Large Scale Battery Storage Funding Round to support research, development and testing of grid-scale battery energy storage systems that are integrated with advanced inverter technology to ensure more renewable energy capacity is injected into the grid for reliability, decarbonisation and resilience.
The aid will be made available to battery energy storage projects of 70MW or larger operating in the National Electricity Market or Western Australia’s Wholesale Electricity Market.
The aim of the funding is to incentivise and derisk private sector investment in energy storage and advanced inverter technologies.
Lessons learned from the three projects that will be supported by ARENA will be used to provide insights on optimal operations of advanced inverters and how they can be used to enhance smart grid capabilities across Australia.
Up to AUS$35 million (US$25.3 million) in grant funding is expected to be awarded per each project.
The development follows the release of a whitepaper compiled by ARENA in July 2020 which highlighted the importance of combining energy storage with advanced inverters in decarbonising the grid.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller, said: “Grid-scale batteries and other types of energy storage technology will be vital to support our future electricity system powered by renewables.
“This funding round will demonstrate the role of advanced inverters in grid-scale batteries to provide system stability, facilitating a more efficient transition and accelerate the uptake of renewable generation.
We’ve seen promising signs that advanced inverters can support system stability, but it’s clear public sector investment is still needed to prove the technology at scale. We’re confident that ARENA funding will help drive the uptake of this technology and provide valuable lessons that will benefit the industry as a whole.”
