100MW/200MWh! New Zealand's first grid-scale battery energy storage project is about to begin - stor

New Zealand's state-owned Energy company Meridian Energy has committed to building a 100MW battery storage project, to be supplied by Saft.

The two-hour (200MWh) energy storage project will be built on a 3ha site acquired by the company last year, near Whangbalrei, New Zealand's northernmost city. It will be involved in energy arbitrage, frequency regulation and help free up web hosting capacity in the country's North Island standby services market.

Meridian said construction on the Ruak AK battery Energy storage project will begin in the first quarter of 2023 and is expected to be completed and operational by the second half of 2024.

Chief Executive Neal Barclay said: "As the nation's intermittent renewable energy generation increases, the Ruak Balk Battery storage project will help manage supply fluctuations through a low carbon footprint and reduce the nation's reliance on fossil fuels."

The company claimed Ruak Ak would be New Zealand's first grid-scale battery energy storage project, but that doesn't seem to be the case. In August, power distribution company WEL Networks and developer Infratec also broke ground on another 35MW project, in the Waikato district of the North Island.

WEL Networks and Infratec have also contracted Saft, a French battery manufacturer and battery storage system integrator, for a project that will provide fast standby frequency regulation and backup power to the town of Huntly. Inverter manufacturer Power Electronics NZ is providing Power Conversion System (PCS) equipment for the project.

Meridian's project, even if completed at a later date, will certainly surpass Huntly's in scale. According to Meridian's fact sheet, it will require about NZ $186 million ($118.2 million) in capital investment, but will receive up to NZ $35 million a year in revenue, compared with annual operating costs of NZ $6 million.

Ruak Battery Energy Storage will also add a 130MW solar photovoltaic plant to the site in the coming years, and Meridian notes that the PV and energy storage projects are able to share infrastructure such as grid connection points, thereby reducing costs.

The project received planning approval in November, according to media reports. Saft will provide the integrated battery storage system, including power electronics, and install, commission and operate it, while Meridian will carry out civil works and transmission company Transpower (also state-owned) will build the grid connection to the Bream Bay substation.

There are currently two megawatt battery storage systems in operation in New Zealand: Distribution company Vector installed a 1MW/2.3MWh Tesla Powerpack 2 system in 2016, and energy generator - retailer Mercury deployed a 1MW/2MWh battery storage project, also a Tesla Powerpack 2 system, in 2018. Although the latter is connected to a high-voltage transmission network, it is a pilot deployment at a research and development center.

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