FAQs
ABOUT THE BATTERY
Once approved and financed, construction of the Eathorpe Battery will take around 12 months.
The Eathorpe Battery will be located near the existing Armidale substation, approximately 5km east of Armidale CBD.
The land is ideal because it is very close to the existing Armidale Substation.
The Eathorpe Battery will support in stabilising the grid and the increasing number of renewable projects in NSW.
The Eathorpe Battery will utilise Lithium-Ion batteries and associated equipment from leading manufacturers. These manufacturers are selected through a separate competitive tender process.
In principle, the facility will be an orderly arrangement of battery cabinets, inverters and control systems including electrical and data cabling. The battery packs are enclosed in custom designed, dust and waterproof ‘cabinets’ made of steel. The cabinet colour will be white, or light coloured to assist with heat management and each cabinet has its own internal thermal management system.
Current battery technology comes with an industry-leading 20-year warranty. The batteries will still retain the majority of their capacity during this period and will be capable of operating beyond it depending on market conditions and other factors.
The Eathorpe Battery will store energy in times of high production and release energy in times of high demand, similar to how a battery on a home solar system works. It will also help to stabilise the grid in a few different ways – it has an emergency response mode to prevent blackouts and it can maintain voltage and frequency levels.
In making the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, the ability to store and dispatch energy will play a key role. Pumped hydro is an example of longer-term storage that is suitable for storing energy and releasing it over days or weeks. However, pumped hydro has a relatively slow ‘ramping’ time and is less suitable for providing rapid-response services to grid contingency events such as outages or heat waves (with high demand created by air-conditioning). Battery storage, such as lithium-ion technology, fills this key short-term response role.
These are some of the functions a grid-scale lithium-ion battery may be expected to perform:
- Network security services including Frequency Control Ancillary Services, and Network Loading Control Ancillary Services
- System Restart Ancillary Services
- Arbitrage (spot market trading)
- Peak shaving
- Block/load shifting
- Renewable firming and smoothing
- Virtual inertia
Many of these services have been provided by coal and gas generators in the past, but as their business models become unviable and they close down, battery energy storage can, and is, being used to deliver these critical services.
ECONOMIC
The project will be privately financed by Neoen.
Eathorpe Battery can reduce costs for consumers in three ways:
- supporting more wind and solar, which are now the cheapest forms of power
- increasing competition in ancillary markets which lowers (or reduces) electricity prices
- helping to avoid blackouts and the associated costs
It is expected the Eathorpe Battery will create a significant volume of construction jobs and a number of full-time ongoing positions.
We will also provide opportunities for local suppliers, businesses, schools, and community groups.
LOCAL
During construction, we expect some localised traffic, noise, and dust impacts. However, we will be managing these to minimise them as much as possible. Following installation, the battery will be visible at the site and will look like an enclosure of white containers.
As with most projects of this size, there will be some impacts during construction. We will work with the community, neighbours, and council to minimise these impacts.
We will be working with the community throughout the project to understand local concerns and aspirations, and ensure we minimise any impacts. We encourage the community to provide feedback through completing the survey.
SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT
The project is considered to be a State Significant Development (SSD). This means that a Development Application (DA) will be submitted to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) for approval.
The Eathorpe Battery will meet all relevant standards for fire safety, and we are working with the local fire authority to ensure the project also meets their requirements.
We make a commitment that all above-ground infrastructure will be removed, and the site rehabilitated when the project ceases to operate. After removal, a large percentage of the material in the batteries will be reclaimed or recycled; over 60% of materials especially critical minerals will be recovered for re-use.
The Eathorpe Battery is using similar technology to the batteries that are being increasingly installed in homes, just on a larger scale. There are no known health risks associated with properly maintained large-scale battery installations.
Monitoring of dust levels during construction is a basic requirement of each project. Dust generating activities are assessed during windy conditions and are stopped and rescheduled where adequate control of dust generation cannot be achieved.
Visual observation of machinery is undertaken during site inspections in addition to daily pre-start checks which ensure all machinery has appropriate emission control devices, is in good working order and is maintained correctly.
