Infigen to build first NEM-connected solar/battery hybrid

By Giles Parkinson on 13 July 2012

Infigen Energy is about to start construction of a solar PV and battery storage plant that it says will become the first such hybrid facility  to operate as despatchable generation within Australia’s wholesale electricity market, the National Electricity Market (NEM).

The project will involve the construction of a 1MW solar PV plant near Bungendore with an equivalent amount of battery storage. Approvals for the facility were received recently and construction will begin with a few weeks.

The first stage will be around 200kW, making it about the smallest facility despatching energy into the NEM, but it will be gradually expanded as Infigen Energy experiments with different construction and mounting techniques, and various storage applications.

“It a very small plant with potentially some very profound outcomes,” David Griffin, the company’s general manager of development, told RenewEconomy in an interview. “We feel there is a reasonable prospect that battery storage costs will follow the price path of solar modules. If that happens, we are going to be talking about a very different NEM.”