More than one gigawatt of new large-scale wind, solar and energy storage projects has been registered on the National Electricity Market over the past three months, the Australian Energy Market Operator has confirmed, including two big batteries and part of Australia’s largest wind farm.
AEMO said the new registrations included the 300MW (450MWh) Victoria Big Battery in Victoria and the 100MW (150MWh) Wandoan battery in Queensland, as well as the first 286MW stage of the much delayed 500MW Stockyard Hill wind farm in Victoria.
The Bulgana Green Energy Hub, which combines a 194MW wind farm and a 20MW/34MWh battery, also obtained its second stage registration, allowing it to ramp up to full capacity. A handful of solar farms were also registered, including the 150MW Suntop and 85MW Hillston projects in Victoria.
According to AEMO’s data, there were 33 generators totalling 2.68GW registered in the last financial year, and 16 generators totalling 1.73GW commissioned – an increase of 600MW registered and 480MW commissioned compared to the previous financial year.
AEMO has also reported that two of four large synchronous condensers being installed in South Australia had completed testing and had been in operation for a “few weeks”, with the remaining two preparing to undergo system tests.
The market operator said these machines would support more “asynchronous” generation and lift caps to the combined output of large scale wind and solar, potentially further relaxing limits to 2,500MW.
