March 31 (Renewables Now) - Macquarie Asset Management’s Green Investment Group (GIG) has joined hands with Shell Energy Operations to work on a 200-MW/400-MWh battery energy storage project in Victoria, Australia.
The partners have already achieved financial close on the project and expect to finalise it late next year, they announced on Friday.
Dubbed Rangebank BESS, the system will be installed at a site within the Rangebank Business Park in Melbourne’s southeast and will have the storage capacity to supply roughly 80,000 homes across Victoria for an hour during peak periods. Its operation will help stabilise the state’s electricity network by discharging electricity at peak demand periods.
The development of the scheme was a joint effort between GIG and Shell Energy, while Australia-based Perfection Private has joined as a minority equity partner.
Fluence Energy Inc (NASDAQ:FLNC), the energy storage joint venture of US-based AES Corp (NYSE:AES) and Germany’s Siemens AG (ETR:SIE), has been picked to build, service and maintain the energy storage facility. Shell Energy will have access to 100% of the battery’s capacity under a 20-year power off-take agreement.
"The Rangebank project is our first grid-scale battery investment in Victoria and marks Shell’s first direct equity investment in a utility-scale BESS globally,” said Shell Energy Australia’s CEO Greg Joiner.
GIG will transfer its stake in the scheme to Eku Energy, its standalone business focused on battery storage that was launched at the end of last year.
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