Unlocking the power of renewables through energy storage

View of central Otago, New Zealand.

As the uptake of wind and solar gains global momentum, the need to manage the inherent variability of renewable energy generation has become a key Future Energy challenge. Energy storage, such as batteries and pumped hydro, are important solutions for reserving and releasing green energy into the grid in the form of on-demand, dispatchable power. Here’s a snapshot of our work that is securing the availability and reliability of low-carbon energy for our clients and communities.

Building our big battery reputation

Working in partnership with Neoen, GHD’s first foray into the world of truly big batteries was as Owner’s Engineer for the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia – the world’s largest battery installation at the time. We have continued to support Neoen’s ambitions over the last year, setting new records by facilitating the planning and environmental approvals for the Victorian Big Battery, the largest Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in the Southern Hemisphere at 300MW. We have also recently undertaken preliminary work for the proposed 700MW Origin Energy Big Battery project at Eraring Power Station in New South Wales.

Trans-Tasman pumped hydro push

Building on the ‘bigger is better’ theme, GHD has had the privilege of working on two of the Southern Hemisphere’s largest and most innovative pumped hydro projects – with a third about to kick-off.

In North Queensland, we are delivering the detailed design for the 250MW Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro project in a joint venture with Mott MacDonald. This will be a world-first project to convert a decommissioned gold mine into a pumped storage facility integrated with onsite solar, where the mine’s two pits will be repurposed as upper and lower reservoirs for water storage. Planned for completion in 2024, it will be the first pumped hydro energy storage project to be commissioned in Australia in over 40 years.

We have also been helping Snowy Hydro and the Future Generation JV on the Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Scheme, expanding the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme first commissioned in 1974. This ‘nation-building renewable energy project’ will link two existing dams in New South Wales through 27 km of tunnels and build an underground power station. Water will be pumped to the upper dam when there is low demand for electricity and a surplus of renewable energy, and released back to the lower dam to generate energy when demand is high.

Completing the trio of trans-Tasman pumped hydro projects, GHD has recently been appointed (as a subcontractor to Mott MacDonald) to the enormous NZ Battery Project in Central Otago, New Zealand. Estimated to cost around NZD4 billion to deliver, the project will convert Lake Onslow into a giant pumped-hydro facility. This will help manage New Zealand’s ‘dry year problem’ – when existing hydropower catchments don’t receive enough rainfall or snowmelt to maintain storage lake water levels – and replace the existing fossil-fuel back-up energy with a source of clean renewable power.