Australia’s energy storage investments hit record-high in Q2

Investments in storage reached billions for the first time in a quarter.

Energy storage investments in Australia breached the billion-dollar mark in Australian dollars for the first time in a quarter, reaching A$2b ($1.3b) worth of storage and hybrid projects during the second quarter, according to the Clean Energy Council (CEC).

This is a 236% growth from the $332m (A$512.5m) in the previous quarter.

The report noted that all three large-scale storage projects that reached financial commitment during the period received funding from a government body.

A total of 1,497 megawatts (MW)/3,802 MW-hour reached financial commitment during the period on the back of the Waratah Super Battery project with an 850 MW/1,680 MWh capacity and storage.

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Despite this, new financial commitments in large-scale generation projects during the period were at $145.8m (A$225m) for 348 MW of projects, 82.3% lower than the rolling quarterly average in the past 12 months.

“While there is now strong political support for the clean energy transition, there remains a raft of barriers as a result of the historic lack of leadership, planning and foresight over the prior decade,” CEC Chief Executive Kane Thornton said.

Thornton said that despite the enormous pipeline in the country, the Australian projects are less attractive to investors due to these barriers,

“These challenges make final investment decisions for large scale renewables projects more difficult, and include under-investment in transmission, grid connection challenges, inconsistent planning policies, constraints in supply chains and workforce as Australia competes with global leaders that are all accelerating their demand for renewable energy,” he added.

$1 = A$1.54