Work On New Zealand’s First Big Battery Starts Soon

New Zealand’s Meridian Energy announced yesterday it will kick off construction of its 100MW / 200MWh Ruakākā Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project in the first quarter of next year.

The first large-scale grid-connected BESS for the country, the system will be situated immediately adjacent to Transpower’s 220kV substation at Bream Bay; a 30 minute drive from Whangārei on New Zealand’s North Island.  That probably still doesn’t mean much to those of us living on this side of the ditch – the project site is around 100 kilometres north of Auckland as the crow flies.

The big battery will generate direct revenue from activities including electricity price arbitrage and reserve market participation, and indirect revenue. Meridian expects up to NZD $35m revenue per annum from the Ruakākā BESS, and there will be other benefits.

“As intermittent renewable generation increases in this country, the Ruakākā Battery Energy Storage System will help manage supply fluctuations through a low carbon footprint, reducing this country’s reliance on fossil fuels,” said Meridian Energy Chief Executive Neal Barclay.

France-headquartered Saft will provide integrated battery supply, installation, commissioning and operational services. Saft knows a thing or two about energy storage as it has been involved in manufacturing batteries used in transport, industry and defense applications for more than a century.

Meridian says completion of the Ruakākā big battery is expected in the second half of 2024.

But wait, there’s more.

Solar Farm To Follow

The Ruakākā big battery will only occupy a small corner of the 105-hectare Ruakākā Energy Park site, and the rest of it will be put to good use down the track.

“We have a bold vision for Ruakākā, with a grid-scale solar farm planned to further speed up our transition to a productive low carbon economy,” said Mr. Barclay “The shared infrastructure provided by the BESS will significantly improve the economics of the future solar farm.”

At this point the solar farm is expected to be 130MW capacity, which will be among the biggest in the country if/when it reaches prime time. No timeline was provided for development of the solar farm aspect.

Large-scale solar is still finding its feet in New Zealand. As far as I’m aware, the biggest operational utility-scale PV facility is still a 2.1MW project at Kapuni in South Taranaki. But there are a number of much bigger projects in the pipeline aside from the one proposed for Ruakākā Energy Park. One of the more recent to be announced is Todd Generation subsidiary Nova Energy’s proposed 400 MW solar farm at Rangitāiki.

Even on the small-scale side of things, solar PV is still a bit thin on the ground in NZ. Some of this is due to the price of systems in New Zealand, which are far higher than in Australia. A 10kW system costs around NZD $24,500 installed – approximately AUD $23,000 at current exchange rates. Just as a comparison, I recently had a 10kW solar system with good quality components installed in Adelaide for $10k.