A study in Northern Ireland has shown that appropriately configured energy storage can offset far more than its rated capacity of mechanical inertia, says Jaad Cabbabe, Senior Manager of Business Development at Fluence, and one of the authors of a white paper Redrawing the Network Map: Energy Storage as Virtual Transmission, published this month.
The Northern Ireland case study, in which Fluence played a part, showed that 360 MW of energy storage could provide the same inertia to the grid as 3 GW of coal-fired generation, says Cabbabe. He adds, “We believe that same concept is replicable in Australia. The ratio may not be exactly the same, but it will probably be very similar.”
Such technical capability is part of the rationale given in the Fluence white paper for including battery energy storage in transmission planning.
“We wanted to plant the seed in the minds of decision makers and network planners that energy storage should be part of their toolbox when they’re solving transmission problems,” says Cabbabe.
Simon Currie, Principal at Energy Estate, an energy advisory and accelerator business, sees storage as a technology that could encourage greater competition and innovation in transforming the grid to suit the renewable age.
He points out that energy-storage options have already been put forward for the Project Specification Consultation Report on the Western Victoria Renewable Integration Project; and in the scoping study for the new Queensland-NSW Interconnector (QNI). Although storage may not have been the preferred choice for these projects, says Currie, “It’s certainly now on the agenda, which wasn’t the case a year or so ago.”
Currie cites ElectraNet’s Dalrymple ESCRI-SA Battery Project among the successful operational storage-augmented transmission assets in Australia. Dalrymple’s 30 MW/8 MWh battery system supplies fast frequency response capability to reduce constraints on the Heywood interconnector, thereby enabling increased flows of electricity through this key link between the South Australian and Victorian networks.
The Fluence white paper places battery storage in the picture for augmenting interconnectors, increasing the capacity of currently constrained transmission lines, and reducing the cost and footprint of new lines.
Energy storage, says Cabbabe can virtually hold the fort — managing energy flow at junctions in the grid — until interconnectors can be built. Where interconnectors may take seven or more years to be approved, constructed and operating, large-scale battery storage can be operational within 18 months to two years.
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