Neoen Australia’s two-hour, 238.5 MW Blyth Battery in South Australia, which will take the title of the state’s largest battery once operational, has reached mechanical completion two weeks ahead of expected date.

NHOA Energy, which is delivering the project for Neoen alongside Elecnor Australia, announced a “major milestone” on LinkedIn on Tuesday, reporting that the project’s 1,280 battery cabinets and “state-of-the-art systems” have been successfully installed and put into service cold.

The battery, built by Neoen in conjunction with the state’s largest wind project to date, the 412MW Goyder South Wind Farm near Burra, reached financial close in Februaryfollowed closely by the first concrete pours and delivery of battery components later this month.

“We are now full steam ahead with breakpoint testing alongside the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and ElectraNet,” says the NHOA LinkedIn. the message says this week.

“This project showcases the power of renewable energy combined with advanced storage, determining the future of Australia’s baseload electricity supply, confirming NHOA Energy’s role as a leader in the global energy transition.

The 477 MWh Blyth battery will be used to deliver 70 MW of “24/7 power” to the country’s largest copper mine, BHP’s Olympic Dam, almost entirely from the first stage of the massive Goyder South wind project.

The news comes a day after Neoen completed the official opening of the first stage of what will be the country’s largest battery, the 560 MW and 2,240 MWh Collie battery in Western Australia.

NHOA Storage Specialist says “landmark” Blyth BESS is equipped with grid-forming inverter technology, enabling it to provide essential system stability services traditionally provided by gas and coal-fired power plants.

And in August, the Blyth BESS became the second battery in Australia to be registered by energy market operator AEMO as a Bi-Directional Unit (BDU), allowing it to both charge and discharge energy to support the grid and provide ancillary services, thereby improving overall system flexibility.

This is a first contract of its kind for Neoen and could provide a model for the future, allowing it to satisfy the needs of large companies and unlock the revenue needed to build some of the massive energy projects renewables and storage in his country. pipeline.

Louis De Sambucy, former Managing Director of Neoen Australia in 2022 described the Blyth Battery as the first critical project for what will be an important equation for large corporate customers in the future: the provision of “firm” renewable generation from a single supplier.

“This is a first for us and it is made possible because Goyder is a very good project with a very high capacity factor, and when we add to that the battery and our coverage capacity, it allows us to deliver something much closer to what customers want “We are looking for a high renewable energy content and close to the load,” de Sambucy said at the time.

“This validates our strategy of pooling our assets. This is much closer to what the client is asking for. In this case it is wind and storage, in the future it could be solar and storage, and a combination of wind and solar, and wind, solar and storage.

Once completed, the Blyth Battery will take over from the 150MW/194MWh Hornsdale Energy Reserve, also built by Neoen, as the largest in the state.

Neoen also advanced packages for what would be one of the largest battery projects on any major Australian grid – a 3,600 megawatt hour (MWh) project proposed for Goyder North, as well as an adjacent 1,000 megawatt (MW) wind project, in north of Burra – separate from the Goyder South Project.