Engie’s Battery Energy Storage at Former Hazelwood Power Plant: A Successful Transition to Renewable Energy

2023-06-14 04:22:00

The image had marked the spirits. On May 24, 2016, Ségolène Royal, then Minister of the Environment, announced on the television program Cash Investigation that Engie, of which the French State is one of the shareholders, is ” will withdraw from Australia’s highly polluting Hazelwood coal-fired power station. A few months later, the group indicated that the latter would close its doors. from spring 2017 “. The reason: too high investments necessary to maintain the installation, which has become undesirable in any case in view of the climate issues.

Coal: Engie closes Hazelwood, Australia’s most polluting power plant

Seven years later, however, the name of Hazelwood returns to the front of the stage. But exit the coal-fired power plant, demolished in October 2021: the site now houses Engie’s largest battery energy storage system (150 megawatts), in partnership with Eku Energy. And it has just been put into service, announced the tricolor company this Wednesday, June 14. Objective: to store there the equivalent of one hour of electricity produced by the solar panels installed on the roofs of 30,000 homes in the State of Victoria, in order to reinject this current into the network at the time of peak consumption.

Storing electricity to restore it at the end of the day

And for good reason, renewable energy from photovoltaics has the disadvantage of being intermittent – unlike that generated from fossil fuels, such as coal or gas. In other words, its production varies during the day depending on the weather conditions (in this case, the degree of sunshine), while the demand for electricity does not follow the same curves.

To balance the system, it is therefore necessary to introduce “flexibility”, ie the ability to adapt supply and demand at any time. At Hazelwood, this will partly involve these batteries, which will be able to absorb the surplus electricity obtained during the day and restore it in the evening. But also, ” for a very small part “, by fossil gas power plants, assumes Sébastien Arbola, deputy director of Engie, given that the amount of energy that can be stored in batteries today remains very limited.

The battery energy storage system, located on the site of the former Hazelwood Generating Station. Credits: Engie

Engie shows 10 gigawatts of batteries in 2030

The announcement echoes statements made on June 12 by Chief Executive Catherine MacGregor when presenting the group’s scenarios for decarbonising Europe by 2050.

« We must anticipate now the flexibility capacities that we will need in 10 years “, which must be ” quadrupled by mid-century “, she had launched to the press.

This will involve installing batteries, but also pumping-storage stations (a technique for storing electricity consisting of bringing water up to storage basins in dams) and thermal power stations in gas ” of carbon “, she continued.

In concrete terms, on batteries, Engie has thus set an ambitious target of 10 GW of installed capacity by 2030 worldwide, for 80 GW of renewable energies by the same deadline.

« For every megawatt of renewable energy installed, 10 to 15% of equivalent capacity will have to be added in the form of batteries. At Engie, we are looking for projects in the United States, Chile, the United Kingdom, where offshore wind power in the North Sea must supply consumers located in the south of the country, as well as in the Netherlands, Belgium , in Germany, but also in Italy and Spain which are not well connected to the rest of Europe “, specifies to the Tribune Sébastien Arbola.

In this area, the group has great ambitions. And hopes to see the arrival of “ significant technological advances » in the matter, in order to consume less critical materials for the manufacture of the famous batteries, and to be able to store more energy there.

Faced with all-electric, Engie defends the key role of gas in the energy transition