News

Metlen Energy & Metals is proposing a massive battery energy storage system to be located approximately 7.7km north-east of Denman and 16.7km south-west of Muswellbrook within the NSW Upper Hunter region and the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone.

The Denman BESS project will include a battery with an impressive capacity of 2.4 GW / 4.8 GWh along with ancillary infrastructure. It will be part of Metlen’s Denman Renewable Energy Hub which includes the 90 MW AC Upper Hunter South Solar Farm.

By AltEnergy’s database records, this would make it by far the largest BESS proposed in Australia, dwarfing the next highest capacity ACEN Renewables’ 1400 MW New England Solar Farm BESS Stage 2 in NSW.

Only two other +1 GW projects have been proposed; CEP.Energy’s 1200 MW Hunter Battery in NSW and Pacific Green’s 1000 MW Portland Energy Park in Victoria. The under-construction Waratah Super Battery in NSW comes in at a mere 850 MW, not even cracking the 1 GW mark!

The Denman BESS will be constructed within an indicative development footprint of about 30 hectares and an onsite substation will connect the BESS into Transgrid’s existing 500kV transmission line located on the site.

Construction of the project is scheduled to start in 2026/2027 over four stages of 6-9 months each. A peak construction workforce of around 50 people will be required.

Greece-headquartered Metlen has been issued SEARs by the state planning authority specifying what issues are required to be addressed in an EIS for the Denman Renewable Energy Hub.

In July it was widely reported that Metlen, formerly known as Mytilineos, had its entire Australian renewable energy portfolio up for sale.