Australia aims to bring down the cost of renewable energy production and help secure a steady supply of renewable power to the grid regardless of weather conditions for this Denmark’s Vestas will build the world’s first utility-scale project that uses battery technology to store power from both wind and solar sources.
It will use batteries supplied by U.S. electric carmaker Tesla Inc and is expected to generate enough power to supply more than 35,000 average Australian homes. Hybrid solutions combining wind, solar and storage hold a huge potential for renewable energy.
Vestas has teamed up with project developer Windlab and Quanta Services.I t will deliver the technology for the 60.2 megawatt (MW) Kennedy Energy Park phase I that will be built in Flinders Shire in central north Queensland.
With years of rapid growth in demand in the wind industry fading, Vestas is positioning itself as a provider of broader renewable energy.
Vestas expects wind power to be profitable even without government subsidies in the next decade. Goldman Sachs analysts predict renewable energy in Europe will be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2023.
The Australian project will consist of 43.2 MW of wind power capacity using twelve of Vestas’ V136-3.6 MW turbines, 15 MW of solar and 2 MW of battery storage.
The Kennedy project is owned by a joint venture between Windlab and Eurus Energy Holdings Corp. of Japan.