Giant battery: first stage of Ruakākā Energy Park switched on
New Zealand's first super-sized grid-connected battery - built at a cost of $186 million - will help improve Northland's energy resilience in future power outages, Meridian Energy says.The company said its Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) would also help smooth out power peaks and troughs, by storing energy when electricity is cheap and releasing it at times of peak demand, such as early mornings and evenings.
The battery park consisted of 80 shipping-container-sized batteries spread over a two-hectare site at Marsden Point, next the former oil refinery south of Whangārei.
Project director Alan de Lima said at full capacity the giant battery could supply 100 megawatts (MW) of power, enough for 60,000 homes or about half Northland's population, for two hours.
It had been connected to the grid since the beginning of the year and would start operating as soon as final tests had been signed off.
It was also stage one of Meridian's planned Ruakākā Energy Park.
Stage two would involve building a $227m 130MW solar farm, with 250,000 panels spread over 172ha of land next to the battery.
Work was due to start in August with power expected to start flowing in early 2027.
Giant battery: first stage of Ruakākā Energy Park switched on
The country's first super-sized grid-connected battery will help improve Northland's energy resilience in future power outages, Meridian Energy says.Peter Degraaf (RNZ)
like this
reshared this
liv
in reply to Dave • • •Dave
in reply to liv • • •Batteries will be a great way to cover peak shortfalls.
Pumped hydro might have been a better way, rather than all that battery manufacturing, but I haven't given up hope on the pumped hydro yet.
liv
in reply to Dave • • •I don't know much about pumped hydro but it sounds good!
This is really dumb of me but I just realized someone tried to describe this battery facility to me and I somehow thought they were talking about this fish farm.
Ruakākā kingfish farm a vision of sustainability for the future
NZ HeraldDave
in reply to liv • • •Pumped hydro is basically pumping the water from a hydro dam back to the top of the dam to be used again. It's basically a form of battery, use energy on days when you have too much so that you have water in your hydro lakes for days when you don't have enough power.
The incoming government cancelled it pretty early on, I think this long term thinking was getting in the way of tax cuts.
Ah interesting!
Ruakākā kingfish farm a vision of sustainability for the future
NZ Heraldliv
in reply to Dave • • •Dave
in reply to liv • • •Is there an active geothermal area in Northland? I once saw a proposal to use forestry slash in combination with geothermal. Use the slash as fuel to get the geothermal heated water up to the next level for better power generation, then capture the CO2 and pump it underground. I think this is the article I read.
I think Northland has a lot of forestry, so if you have geothermal you could do this idea!
How NZ could become a world leader in decarbonisation using forestry and geothermal technology
The Conversationliv
in reply to Dave • • •Fascinating out of the box idea. It does have geothermal at Ngawha which is relatively near a forestry and could be expanded significantly.
While looking for that website I just stumbled on a tiny, rickety old hydro station
so turns out I was wrong about that!
Omiru / Wairua Falls | Maungatapere.nz
Maungatapere.nzDave
in reply to liv • • •Opened in 2020! Your link also says "The Ngāwhā geothermal field is the only high temperature geothermal resource in New Zealand, outside the Taupo Volcanic Zone." so I think I'm allowed to be surprised 😅
It can be fascinating reading the list of power stations in NZ.
I noticed one that's believed to be one of the oldest continually operating hydroelectric plants in the world. Mokopeka, since 1891. Some photos here.
Welcome to Heritage New Zealand
Welcome to Heritage New Zealandliv
in reply to Dave • • •That's so cool! I love old "modern" tech like old subways etc.
That list really is fascinating. Thank you Dave you always give me something to dive into! I get the sense that we are way under-utilizing solar.
Dave
in reply to liv • • •Solar has got a lot cheaper recently, and big projects take time. But they are happening now!
That list of power stations has 8 operational solar fars and another 18 proposed/in development!
liv
in reply to Dave • • •abeorch
in reply to Dave • •Its horses for courses. Pumped hydro is great in areas with suitable terrain and for longer term storage. In other areas / applications batteries make sense. NZ is of course capital constrained. It would be great to do everything altogether all at once but its a journey right and you have to bring people along with you.
There is also a weird effect with new tech where delaying actually makes economic sense if costs are going down so you get the most bang for your buck by holding off for a bit.
Aotearoa / New Zealand reshared this.