Lyon Solar, the Brisbane energy group has enlisted the help of the Japanese manufacturing giant, Mitsubishi Corporation to bankroll a $2 billion solar and battery power program that could help thwart blackouts like the one that hit South Australia last Wednesday as written in an AFR article.
The two companies plan to build 1000 megawatts of large-scale solar power and storage batteries across Australia by the year 2020 in a world-leading program that will cost nearly $2 billion and which could spawn a local battery assembly industry.
This will be Australia’s biggest solar batteries plunge. It aims to take batteries to a new level and help stabilize the electricity grid as intermittent solar and wind increasingly replace coal and gas –fired power.
Batteries are competing with other technologies to help make wind and solar power more stable and reliable. The project includes high transmission proposals like Transgrid’s $500 million South Australia-NSW interconnector, wave power, pumped hydro storage and solar plants that can store energy as molten salt.
According to David Green, Lyon Solar partner, the renewable energy projects backed up by batteries could also help to maintain the power supply in communities that can be cut off by storms, just like what happened in SA.
Lyon Solar closed its 35/65 joint venture with Mitsubishi in Tokyo. They will use batteries supplied by AES Energy Storage which is part of the US power group AES Corporation..
The project will also be backed by 500 megawatts of batteries across Australia by 2020. They will also build another 500 megawatts of batteries to support the grid, enabling more wind and solar power to be connected without decreasing reliability and stability.
Mitsubishi will join Lyon Solar ion the Kingfisher project, a 100-megawatt solar plant at Roxby Downs in South Australia backed by 100 megawatts of batteries which Lyon Announced earlier this month at a cost of $400 million.
Click here to read the full story on AFR
Featured Image Credit: Murray Foubister
Solar Trust Centre Team
