THE new $38.5m Tesla battery storage system for one of the Woakwine Range windfarms is now fully operational and reportedly earned $900,000 over two days last month.
Energy Synapse managing director Marjia Petkovic said the two South Australian windfarm batteries at Lake Bonney and Hornsdale had taken advantage of a heatwave on December 19 and 20.
“The very high daily revenue earned by batteries coincided with the first price volatility of the season,” Ms Petrovic said.
“The spot price in South Australia hit the market cap of $14,700/MWh for an hour on December 19.
“The high pricing also coincided with low electricity generation from wind and solar.”
“As a result, expensive gas and diesel generators were needed to meet demand.
“Being both dispatchable and fast responding, batteries were well placed to take advantage of this volatility in pricing.
“This highlights a broader economic challenge for wind and solar farms.
“Wind and solar farms have a marginal cost of zero.
“As a result, they put significant downward pressure on electricity prices at the time at which they are generating electricity.
“However, because they are weather dependent, their operators cannot ramp up production to take advantage of high prices.
“As the uptake of variable renewable energy grows, the earnings gap between renewables and other market participants will continue to increase.
“Energy storage is of course, one of the solutions to this problem.
“Thus, we can expect renewable energy projects to increasingly incorporate storage to help manage this risk.”
Contractors engaged by Infigen Energy spent several months at the construction site overlooking Lake Bonney.
Infigen Energy told the Australian Stock Exchange on December 10 the battery had started working on November 29.
