Sanjeev Gupta, chairman of the GFG Alliance and majority shareholder of SIMEC ZEN Energy , talked about the state of energy storage in Australia, ahead of the Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition (AES 2018) where he will be the keynote speaker.
In the last year, Gupta’s company acquired Arrium steelworks, invested in upgrading Whyalla Steelworks in South Australia, won a contract to supply at least 80 per cent of the South Australian Government’s energy needs until 2020, and purchased a majority stake in ZEN Energy through his father’s energy company, the SIMEC Group. He also announced plans to build the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery in South Australia, and most recently partnered with Neoen to deliver solar power to Victoria’s Laverton Steelworks.
Transition to renewable
Gupta said he believes in the transition of energy consumption to renewable solutions and is a big supporter of this, but with intermittency a key challenge, having alternative solutions for energy is important.
“There are various ways of doing that, and we’re working on many of those. Like different types of storage actually, if you want to call it that. So pumped hydro is one big part of that initiative, using empty mine pits which we own, and there’s obviously plenty of those in Australia. Using them as reservoirs for energy and running them to generate power during times of high electricity [demand], or no electricity through other means like solar, is one way.
“Then there are other ways, using waste and biomass is another big way, which we’re doing in the UK, which we’ll bring to Australia eventually. In between that, there are batteries, because batteries are not competitive as a storage medium today, but they will be in our view, in the long term. The same way as solar prices and wind prices came down, battery prices will come down as well.”
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