News

Increasing competition for utility-scale battery energy storage system development sites has been clearly revealed this week with two separate, neighbouring projects put forward for planning approvals.

The two projects are proposed on contiguous lots close to Transgrid’s 330kV Bannaby Substation, approximately 70km north-east of Goulburn in the Upper Lachlan LGA of NSW.

AMPYR’s proposed 375 MW / 1500 MWh Swallow Tail BESS is proposed to connect to Bannaby Substation, located approximately 1.5km to the south, via a new high voltage transmission line.

The project site covers a total area of 40 hectares, however the development footprint will have an area of 8 hectares.

Construction is anticipated to start in 2027 and require up to 120 FTE workers over the 15-month duration, with operations scheduled to start the following year.

Competing for access to the Bannaby Substation is Enervest’s proposed Hanworth Battery project, however this has a far larger capacity of approximately 1.2 GW / 4.8 GWh storage.

The overall BESS project site covers approximately 60ha of land on two lots containing an indicative development footprint envelope of 26 hectares.

Overhead transmission lines will connect the onsite switching station with the substation.

Provisionally the project will include 810 battery containers housing 56 battery modules/packs, 456 inverters/PSCs, and an on-site 33kV to 330kV substation.

Construction is scheduled to start in October 2026 , with operations scheduled to start in October 2028.