Cranbourne is now home to Victoria’s second-largest battery, the Rangebank Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).
On Tuesday 3 December, Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio announced the completion of construction on the Eku Energy and Shell Energy’s Rangebank battery, a 200 megawatt (MW), 400 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery.
The battery is located next to the Cranbourne terminal station and will be one of the largest in the state, with the storage capacity to power the equivalent of 80,000 Victorian homes for an hour during peak periods.
Rangebank BESS features a single contiguous concrete slab and externally located high-voltage cabling, which ensures simple access for maintenance and improves operational efficiency throughout the lifespan of the project.
From the land search, the whole project took about five years.
“I was very delighted that we started this journey a number of years ago in Victoria to promote and facilitate the build of such technologies because they are the technologies that we will need if we are able to achieve our 65 per cent renewable energy or renewable electricity target by 2030, and 95 per cent by 2030,” Ms D’Ambrosio said at the opening ceremony.
She said the batteries would be critical to help Victoria continue to provide the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in the national system.
“Certainly, once final testing and commissioning have been completed here, Rangebank battery will be a key link in the lifeblood of Melbourne’s southeast, soaking up and storing renewable energy to be discharged at times of peak demand,” she said.
“It’ll support lower bills for households and businesses. And by providing essential grid system services, it’ll support safe, secure, and reliable electricity for our homes, our businesses, hospitals, and schools.”
Victoria is the home of big batteries with 11 large-scale energy storage systems with a total output capacity of 540 MW in operation.
The Rangebank battery is one of a further 12 utility-scale battery projects under construction or in commissioning in Victoria, which will add another 1.4 gigawatts of additional output capacity and 3.2 gigawatt-hours of storage.
