As reported by Utility Dive May 14, a report by McKinsey and Co presented at the earlier Australian Energy Week conference claims that the Horsndale Power Reserve (HPR) Battery Energy Storage System in South Australia has now reduced grid service costs by 90%, taking over a 55% share of the state’s Frequency Control Ancillary Services.
The HPR battery is rated at 100 megawatts discharge and 80 MW charge, with a storage capacity of 129 megawatt hours, representing approximately 75 minutes at full discharge. The HPR shares the same 275 kilovolt network connection point as the 300 MW Hornsdale Wind Farm.
The Australian Energy Management Operator (AEMO) explains that the HPR provides several services to the grid:
• Energy arbitrage – Under normal conditions, 30 MW of the battery’s discharge capacity is made available to NEOEN, operator of the Hornsdale Wind Farm, for commercial operation in the National Electricity Market (NEM).
• Reserve energy capacity – the remaining 70 MW of battery discharge capacity is reserved for power system reliability purposes.
• Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS). The two graphs from AEMO show the speed and accuracy of the HPR compared to a conventional steam turbine. Costs from the earlier reliance on gas-fired generation to follow load could reportedly rise to $7 million per day.
Author Fred Lambert at electrek.co has reported that the HPR made about $1 million in just a few days by taking advantage of the country’s volatile energy market, and was starting to eat away at the gas industry’s profits.
In a post May 14 he said Tesla has announced another Powerpack energy storage project, to be used as a virtual power plant for grid balancing in Europe, with a total power output of 18.2 MW.