Australian gov’t to underwrite construction of 6 battery projects

CANBERRA, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — The Australian government will underwrite the construction of six new big battery projects in the country’s southeast under the first round of its Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS).
Chris Bowen, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, on Wednesday named six winners of the pilot round of the CIS, under which the government is aiming to underwrite private companies to build 32 gigawatts (GW) of renewable electricity projects by 2030.
Four batteries will be built in the state of South Australia (SA) and two in Victoria after the government put out a tender for batteries with a total storage capacity of 600 megawatts (MW).
Bowen said that the government received bids for 19 GW in total storage capacity and that the total storage capacity of the winning projects will exceed what was initially planned.
“Today I’m pleased to announce the six very high-quality battery projects that have been successful. They will deliver nearly 1,000 MW of storage by 2027. That is considerably more than the 600 MW we went out to tender for,” he said in a speech to a conference in Victoria, adding that “we are able to over-deliver on our promise because of the high quality of bids received.”
The biggest of the batteries, with a storage capacity of 350 MW, will be built in eastern Victoria by the EnergyAustralia company.
The CIS was established in 2022 with an initial goal of underwriting 6 GW of new renewable energy generation but was expanded in November 2023.
Its new target of 32 GW consists of 23 GW of renewable generation projects and 9 GW of storage.
If electricity prices are too low for the companies who build CIS projects to generate a profit, the government will pay the difference, but if a company’s earnings exceed a set ceiling, the government will share in the profits. ■