April 6, 2023: Macquarie Asset Management’s Green Investment Group and Shell Energy Operations are behind plans to develop a 200MW/400MWh Fluence Gridstack BESS in Australia, the firms announced on March 31.
The system (see image), to be completed late next year on the Rangebank Business Park in Melbourne, will have the storage capacity to power the equivalent of 80,000 homes across the state of Victoria for an hour during peak periods, the partners said.
The Rangebank BESS will help to stabilize the state’s electricity supply by providing additional storage capacity, which can be discharged at times of peak demand.
Shell Energy will have access to all of the system’s energy over a 20-year period.
Fluence will build, service and maintain Rangebank.
Shell Energy Australia CEO Greg Joiner said the project is the group’s first grid-scale battery investment in Victoria and marks Shell’s first direct equity investment in a utility-scale BESS worldwide.
Investment details were not disclosed, but investment firm Perfection Private has a minority stake in the project.
Green Investment Group’s interest in the project will be transferred to its Eku Energy battery storage development business, which has a pipeline of projects around the world including the UK, Japan and Taiwan.