Construction for the largest Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) ever deployed in the Asia-Pacific will begin in Melbourne, eventually supporting up to 1,200MW of renewable energy storage.
The Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH) project is wholly owned by the Singaporean developer Equis and is being jointly developed with renewable energy provider Syncline Energy.
MREH will be built in two stages of 600MW each. The first stage is scheduled to commence construction in 2023 and commence operations in 2024. As a Project of State Significance with the Victorian Government gazetting a Planning Scheme amendment in April 2021, MREH has now completed all required planning and environmental approvals and community impact assessments.
The project will be Australia’s only BESS above 200MW in capacity that connects to the National Electricity Market’s (NEM) high voltage 500kV transmission system, allowing a volume of electricity to be rapidly dispatched unmatched by other battery storage systems.
MREH is being uniquely developed with six separate 200MW points-of-connection to the NEM, allowing different uses and grid responses for the battery system.
Equis Managing Director, David Russell, said the project would see over $1.9 billion in Victorian investment during the course of its development.
“MREH will involve over $1.9 billion of investment into Victoria, 200 full time construction jobs and 15 full time operational jobs for Melbourne’s rapidly growing Northern and Western suburbs,” Mr Russell said.
“In addition, MREH has been developed on the basis of and the Melton community will benefit from the inclusion of underground transmission lines, the first time such technology will have been deployed in Australia.
“The scale and uniqueness of MREH’s approvals and development mean it will be capable of providing both short and long hour storage and response services catering to the changing demands of the National Electricity Market.
“MREH’s scale is also facilitating development work of a large-scale battery recycling hub and hydrogen hub utilising Melbourne’s excess sewage wastewater. The result will be more investment and permanent jobs in the region.”
