New Zealand’s first super-sized grid-connected battery - built at a cost of $186 million - will help improve Northland’s energy resilience in future power outages, Meridian Energy says.
The company said its Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) would also help smooth out power peaks and troughs, by storing energy when electricity is cheap and releasing it at times of peak demand, such as early mornings and evenings.
The battery park consisted of 80 shipping-container-sized batteries spread over a two-hectare site at Marsden Point, next the former oil refinery south of Whangārei.
Project director Alan de Lima said at full capacity the giant battery could supply 100 megawatts (MW) of power, enough for 60,000 homes or about half Northland’s population, for two hours.
It had been connected to the grid since the beginning of the year and would start operating as soon as final tests had been signed off.
It was also stage one of Meridian’s planned Ruakākā Energy Park.
Stage two would involve building a $227m 130MW solar farm, with 250,000 panels spread over 172ha of land next to the battery.
Work was due to start in August with power expected to start flowing in early 2027.
Pumped hydro sounds super useful! There’s no hydro in Northland but if it had a better infrastructure there is room for geothermal and solar.
Is there an active geothermal area in Northland? I once saw a proposal to use forestry slash in combination with geothermal. Use the slash as fuel to get the geothermal heated water up to the next level for better power generation, then capture the CO2 and pump it underground. I think this is the article I read.
I think Northland has a lot of forestry, so if you have geothermal you could do this idea!
Fascinating out of the box idea. It does have geothermal at Ngawha which is relatively near a forestry and could be expanded significantly.
While looking for that website I just stumbled on a tiny, rickety old hydro station so turns out I was wrong about that!
Opened in 2020! Your link also says “The Ngāwhā geothermal field is the only high temperature geothermal resource in New Zealand, outside the Taupo Volcanic Zone.” so I think I’m allowed to be surprised 😅
It can be fascinating reading the list of power stations in NZ.
I noticed one that’s believed to be one of the oldest continually operating hydroelectric plants in the world. Mokopeka, since 1891. Some photos here.
That’s so cool! I love old “modern” tech like old subways etc.
That list really is fascinating. Thank you Dave you always give me something to dive into! I get the sense that we are way under-utilizing solar.
Solar has got a lot cheaper recently, and big projects take time. But they are happening now!
That list of power stations has 8 operational solar fars and another 18 proposed/in development!
That’s awesome!