News

AGL Energy has submitted plans for a new 500 MW / 2000 MWh battery energy storage system in Tomago, near Newcastle in NSW, to the state planning authority.

It will be AGL’s fifth grid-scale battery development, including projects it is developing to replace exiting coal-fired power stations at Liddell in NSW and Loy Yang in Victoria and gas in Torrens Island in South Australia, as the utility reshapes its generation portfolio.

What’s unusual about the Tomago BESS project is it may replace a gas-fired power station that hasn’t even been built yet.

AGL received planning approvals for its proposed 250 MW gas-fired peaking unit Newcastle Power Station from the state government in March 2021.

Newcastle Power Station (NPS) is proposed for the same parcel of land that the Tomago BESS is planned on. 

However in the scoping report for the Tomago BESS, AGL said “Given that the Project and the NPS propose to occupy the same Site, neither of the projects would be able to operate concurrently. On this basis, AGL will only develop one of the proposed options…”.

AGL said it expected “that the development consent granted for the [BESS] Project would be appropriately conditioned requiring the proponent to clearly nominate whether it will proceed with the development, construction and operation of either the BESS Project or the approved NPS project”.

The Tomago BESS is expected to provide a range of network services to augment the reliability of energy supply in the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), storage and firming capacity to the National Energy Market, and additional services to assist grid stability, including frequency control ancillary services. 

AGL’s 250 MW Torrens Island BESS in Adelaide is in the final stages of connection, and its 50 MW Broken Hill BESS in NSW is under construction.

Torrens Island was the first order placed under a BESS supply and EPC framework agreement between Wärtsilä and AGL.