Green Energy: Origin's big battery gets an open lane, while hydrogen gets an Olympic-sized marketing opportunity

Origin Energy mega battery moving ahead

Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) unveiled plans for one of Australia’s largest batteries earlier this year, with a 700MW battery with four hours of dispatch duration.

Located at the Eraring Power Station in New South Wales, the project has been proposed to help the major power supplier with its transition out of coal-fired generation by 2032.

“We recognise we have an important role to play in positioning Origin’s electricity generation portfolio to support Australia’s rapid transition to renewables,” Origin’s Greg Jarvis said in January.

“A large-scale battery at Eraring will help us better support renewable energy and maintain reliable supply for customers, by having long duration storage ready to dispatch into the grid at times when renewable sources are not available.”

Hinting at the scale of the rapid scale up and uptake of stationary storage in Australia and around the world – something Tesla is adamant can provide inertia for the grid without the need to prolong the life of fossil fuel generating power plants – the project is more than four times the size of our first mega battery, South Australia’s Hornsdale reserve.

Origin wants to have the battery’s first phase up and running by late next year and has received a smoothed path forward from Federal Enviro bureaucrats, who ruled it is not a controlled action under the EPBC Act.

Renewable energy projects are being proposed at an ever increasing pace as businesses lead the transition from non-renewable to renewable power sources.

CWP Renewables this week opened its EPBC referral for the Jeremiah Wind Farm for public comment.

The project would involve the use of 65 wind turbines to generate up to 400MW of clean power, or enough to power 200,000 New South Welsh homes each year.

The project will also include an energy storage facility of an as yet unknown scale and type, which would allow it to provide (in the Morrison Government’s favourite parlance) “dispatchable” power to the grid.

Olympics hydrogen’s chance to step into the mainstream

The Olympics have spent the better part of the past year hanging on a knife’s edge since they were first delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic last year.

Just this week two South African soccer players and a team analyst were diagnosed with the virus after flying in from their covid-ravaged home land.

American tennis star Coco Gauff was another to record a positive test while South African rugby 7s coach Neil Powell is also in isolation after testing positive at the side’s camp in Kagashima.

One sector who will be desperate to see the event go ahead as planned (even without crowds) is the hydrogen energy industry.

The Games of the 32nd Olympiad loom as a unique marketing opportunity for the so-called fuel of the future, with the olympic flame to be fuelled by hydrogen for the first time.

Japan was the first country to develop a national hydrogen strategy back in 2017.

Olympics sponsor Toyota has also provided 500 Mirai fuel cell cars to transport staff and officials on top of 100 hydrogen fuel cell buses with a tank capacity of 600l.

The Olympic Village too is running as a “miniature hydrogen city”, according to the IOC.

“With their immense reach and visibility, the Olympic Games are a great opportunity to demonstrate technologies which can help tackle today’s challenges, such as climate change,” the IOC’s Marie Sallois said.

“Tokyo 2020’s showcasing of hydrogen is just one example of how these Games will contribute to this goal.”