AGL is pleased to announce it has signed four innovative battery derivative agreements with Maoneng Group (Maoneng), which will provide security of pricing to benefit customers during peak periods.

The deal will see Maoneng develop four large-scale batteries, each 50MW/100MWh in capacity in New South Wales.

Under the contract, AGL has the ability to call on capacity as required from the Maoneng batteries at a fixed price for 15 years, thereby locking in a price on the cost of electricity for that period.

The batteries will be operational from 2023 and will store enough energy to power up to 30,000 homes.

AGL CEO Brett Redman said the agreement heralds a new era for the company, customers and the National Electricity Market (NEM).

“This is the dawn of the battery age and AGL is proud to lead the way,” Mr Redman said.

“Australia’s energy market is undergoing significant changes and large-scale batteries like these will be pivotal in providing firming capacity in the shift between baseload power and renewables.

“AGL’s a company with a 180-year history of innovation and I’m proud that we are leading the way with this step into batteries, which will be the technology of the future

“AGL led the development of wind and solar projects in Australia, which has provided reliable and affordable power to thousands of Australians, and we have said for some time we were serious about leading in energy storage too.

“This will present huge benefits for energy customers and the stability of the energy market. In total, this will help support an additional 200MW of dispatchable capacity in New South Wales.

“In addition to this exciting project, we are progressing with major investments in storage and firming capacity, with more than $1.9 billion of new energy supply projects completed or in construction and another $2 billion in the pipeline.

“We commissioned the Dalrymple Battery Project in South Australia, have secured options for two pumped hydro projects at Kanmantoo in South Australia and Bells Mountain in the Hunter region of New South Wales as well as plans for a gas firming power station in Newcastle.

“The response to our ground-breaking Virtual Power Plant (VPP) program has been fantastic, with more than 1,000 customers signed up already. The program was an extension of our $20 million initial VPP project.

In December 2017, AGL entered into a 100MW offtake agreement in New South Wales with Maoneng’s 255MWDC Sunraysia Solar Farm, and up to an additional 200MW of offtake from additional solar projects.