Victoria’s energy storage deadlines rule out solar thermal, hydro

March 25, 2017
Issue 

The Victorian government announced on March 14 a $20 million tender, to install up to 80MW of grid-scale energy storage by 2018.

It invited proposals from batteries, pumped hydro, compressed air, flywheel, and solar thermal technologies.

But its deadlines, of 30MW expected to be installed by next summer and 50MW by the following summer, are impossible for two of those technologies to meet.

Pumped hydro facilities take several years to build, because dams, tunnels and pipelines would need to be built.

Solar thermal technologies, such as solar towers, would also take at least two years to build.

This second round of energy tenders follows the closure of the La Trobe Valley’s Hazelwood coal-fired power plant.

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