Australia's largest privately funded and utility-scale battery project is to come up at the site of the former Hazelwood Power Station in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria. Funded by ENGIE and Macquarie's Green Investment Group (GIG), the grid-connected energy storage system will be built, operated, and maintained by Fluence for over 20 years. The battery is scheduled to become operational by November 2022.

Once operational, the Hazelwood battery energy storage will be able to store and deliver 150 MWh of power equivalent to an hour of energy generation from the rooftop solar systems of 30,000 homes. The project, with access to 1,600MW of dormant transmission capacity of the former thermal power plant, will connect to existing network infrastructure to support Victoria's transition to renewable energy and enhance the state's grid stability.

"ENGIE's long-term commitment to Hazelwood and the Latrobe Valley started as a power station operator, then as an investor in a multi-million-dollar rehabilitation project and now as the builder and owner of a new energy asset that helps with the decarbonization of the energy system," said ENGIE ANZ CEO Augustin Honorat.

The battery project deploys Fluence's latest-generation Gridstack product incorporating 342 modular, standardized factory-built 'Fluence Cubes' and integrated edge controls software for high levels of reliability and safety at all levels of the system. The Fluence Cube is an enclosure that houses battery modules and a range of power electronics and safety equipment including inverters, transformers, switchgear, and other plant equipment onsite. Power dispatch will be optimized using the AI-powered "IQ Digital Platform" developed by Fluence, which claims to maximize both battery health as well as the bidding of the battery in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

"The Hazelwood Battery will be the product of Fluence's latest-generation technology, supported by our rapidly growing team in Victoria and the most widely adopted automated trading platform available in Australia today", said Aaron McCann, Fluence General Manager for Australia.

Commenting on the project, GIG's Global Head of Energy Technology Greg Callman said his company is delighted to invest alongside ENGIE, which will help service households and businesses in Victoria, through access to reliable renewable energy. "GIG is committed to supporting the green energy transition and storage is critical in enabling ever-expanding renewables capacity and use, to ensure that electricity networks are resilient, reliable, and flexible", he added.