Plans for a 5 MW/10 MWh compressed air energy storage facility in South Australia have been given. The nod by the state’s government.
Canadian firm Hydrostor has developed plans for the project, which would make use of disused caverns at the Angas zinc mine near Strathalbyn.
The project will be Australia’s first advanced CAES project and will support the integration of renewable energy resources into the grid, Hydrostor said. The project has been awarded a combined total of A$9 million of grant funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the government of South Australia Renewable Technology Fund and is expected to be in service in 2020.
The CAES plant will act like a giant battery, using excess renewable energy to compress air for storage underground in the mine. When energy is needed, the air is used to drive a turbine to generate electricity for the grid.
The 5 MW project will be dispatched into the National Electricity Market (NEM) to provide synchronous inertia, load shifting, frequency regulation, and support grid security and reliability.
