Federal Member for Grey Rowan Ramsey has welcomed ARENA’s support of a 30MW, 8MWh battery to be installed on southern Yorke Peninsula at the Dalrymple sub-station.
“The Commonwealth will contribute $12m of the total $30m cost of the facility,” Mr Ramsey said.
“This battery is more about frequency modulation than bulk storage of energy and is urgently required at the moment.
“8MWh is just 10% of what the Wattle Point Windfarm is capable of producing in an hour, so in a total capacity sense it won’t make a lot of difference to the state challenge.
“However, since the State Government’s decision to turn its back on the Northern Power station at Port Augusta and allow it to close, our grid has been wracked by frequency modulation variation which has the ability to trip lines out. In the worst case scenario this can lead to the cascading crash we saw in the state last February blacking the whole state out.”
Mr Ramsey said South Australia is experiencing a wide range of challenges in our electricity supply at the moment largely created by the unplanned and reckless policies of the State Government.
“Other states are not facing the same issues,” he said.
“We have some of the world’s least reliable and most expensive electricity and it has inflicted much damage on our economy.
“However, it is what it is and we now have to all contribute to pull us back from the brink which is why the Federal Government is not only investing in this facility, we are also putting $110m into a solar thermal concentrator plant with storage at Port Augusta, developing a pumped hydro option in the same region and have moved to free up gas supplies which will reduce the price and increase the security of our electricity supply in SA.
“The Dalrymple investment will make the grid in the region much more resilient. It will keep southern YP on the grid longer, greatly reducing losses in turbulent times. It will also reduce the chances of a failure dragging the rest of the grid down with it.”
Media Contact: Leonie Lloyd-Smith 08 8633 1744
August 25 2017
