AGL has received approval from the Victorian Department of Environment, Water, Land and Planning for the development of the proposed 200MW, four-hour grid-scale battery at Loy Yang power station.

AGL Chief Operating Officer, Markus Brokhof said AGL welcomes the approval of this project which will now allow AGL to move forward with assessing the economics and viability of the project.

“As the largest ASX operator of renewables assets, a key focus is to invest in storage and firming capacity to ensure we continue to provide reliable and affordable electricity to households and businesses,” Mr Brokhof said.

“Our generation sites provide rare and unique redevelopment opportunities as they are established sites with a surplus of land, road and rail access, transport facilities and storage infrastructure embedded in the environment.

“As we continue on our pathway to net-zero by 2050, we will progress our plans to develop these sites into integrated industrial energy hubs, with the ‘Latrobe Hub’ set to create regional jobs and opportunities well into the future.”

The proposed Loy Yang grid-scale battery is part of AGL’s planned national roll-out of 850MW of grid-scale batteries, with planning approval being sought for projects in Broken Hill and the Hunter in NSW and construction on a 250MW battery at Torrens Island in South Australia due to begin soon.

Should AGL reach a final investment decision on the Loy Yang grid-scale battery, the project would be part of Accel Energy following AGL’s proposed demerger.