Australia will deploy more than 1GWh of battery energy storage systems in 2021, including 756MWh of non-residential battery energy storage projects, mainly large-scale grid-side battery energy storage projects.
Solar and energy storage market intelligence research firm Sunwiz has released a survey report on the development of the Australian battery energy storage system market, reviewing a record year for the Australian energy storage market.
The report noted that a total of 1,089MWh of energy storage systems were deployed across all energy storage segments in Australia, of which 30,246 residential battery storage systems were deployed with a total storage capacity of 333MWh.
Sunwiz predicts a similar scale is likely in 2022, with an estimated 33,000 residential battery storage systems (363MWh of total storage capacity, with an average of 11kWh per residential battery storage system) and a grid size of approximately 750MWh energy storage system.
Sunwiz said total battery storage capacity is expected to be around 1,113MWh deployed in 2022, with the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector expected to grow fourfold.
Research by Sunwiz found that from 2015 to 2021, Australia had a total of 2,657MWh of battery storage systems deployed, both residential (1,464MWh) and non-residential (1,192MWh).
Germany, the European leader in the residential energy storage industry, will deploy 739MW/1,268MWh of residential energy storage systems in 2021, compared to just 36MW/h last year, according to a survey report authored by RWTH Aachen University in Germany. 32MWh grid-scale energy storage system.
Victoria is the market leader in Australia
From a state-by-state basis, Victoria accounted for 32% of the overall size of the Australian energy storage market, New South Wales accounted for 24%, and South Australia accounted for 21%. Other states account for much less, with Western Australia at 9 per cent, Queensland at 8 per cent, the Northern Territory at 2 per cent and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Tasmania at 1 per cent each.
It has been a record year for Victoria, while NSW has seen strong growth in energy storage capacity, with 7,377MW of deployments in line with recent figures. South Australia has fallen from second to third in 2020, falling behind in previous years' rankings due to falling subsidies in the state.
Today, Victoria owns and operates 48% of Australia's grid-scale energy storage systems, followed by South Australia at 24%, Queensland at 14% and NSW at 9%.
Tesla has also supplied energy storage equipment for four other large-scale battery energy storage projects commissioning in 2021, including the Wallgrove Grid Battery project (50MW/75MWh) in South Australia and the Bulgana Green Energy Hub in Victoria Battery energy storage project (20MW/34MWh).
The Yadlamalka energy storage project is a smaller energy storage project using megawatt-scale vanadium flow batteries. As a demonstration project supported by the local government, Anglo-American battery manufacturer Invinity Energy Systems will provide a 2MW/8MWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) to be deployed at a site in South Australia with a 6MW solar power generation facility.
About 1,000MWh of grid-scale energy storage is currently under construction in Australia, but the total capacity of battery storage projects planned for development reaches 57GWh, the report said.
A map of proposed commercial and grid-scale projects in the report shows that almost all battery storage projects are in eastern Australia, expanding inland from New South Wales, concentrated in southern Victoria, and Converging towards the coast of South Australia.