"Tasmania is uniquely placed to help lead Australia through its challenging transition towards cleaner sources of energy. Battery of the Nation offers a future that’s clean, reliable and affordable." - Steve Davy, Hydro Tasmania CEO
Tasmania has significant potential in the future development of wind and hydropower, coupled with more transmission and interconnection. Tasmania could make a much greater contribution to the National Electricity Market (NEM), delivering more clean, reliable and affordable energy.
It is anticipated these developments will drive billions of dollars in investment and create thousands of jobs in Tasmania, as well as delivering energy security for Tasmania and lowest possible power prices for Tasmanians.
Battery of the Nation is about investigating and developing a pathway of future development opportunities in hydropower system expansion including pumped hydro. Hydro Tasmania is leading work on hydropower system improvements, new pumped hydro opportunities and future market analysis.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has supported Battery of the Nation project studies with $5.0 million in funding as part of its Advancing Renewables Program.
As Australia’s transition to a greater penetration of renewables ramps up, new analysis from Hydro Tasmania examines the role of storage in supporting a reliable, resilient future energy market and shows that Tasmania’s clean energy stacks up as very cost competitive, further validating the case for an expansion of Tasmania’s hydropower system.
Our white papers, jointly funded with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), take a close look at future modelling and design of the energy market, unlocking investment in much-needed storage and how deep storage is the optimal, least-cost choice to manage future uncertainty during this transition.
Hydro Tasmania welcomes the release of TasNetworks’ latest assessment of a new Bass Strait interconnector.
Hydro Tasmania Chief Executive Officer Steve Davy welcomed the positive business case findings for a 1500 MW Marinus Link, saying Hydro Tasmania stands ready to respond to the needs of the market.
More interconnection will unlock Tasmania’s full renewable energy potential, providing clean, reliable and affordable energy to support a resilient future energy market.
You can read more about the Business Case Assessment and Project Assessment Draft report at the Marinus Link website.
With a strong portfolio of future pumped hydro energy storage opportunities, Hydro Tasmania welcomes news that TasNetworks is assessing options for Marinus Link to provide up to 1500 MW of new interconnection between Tasmania and the rest of the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Our recently completed pre-feasibility study, jointly funded with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), has identified cost-competitive pumped hydro opportunities, with a combined capacity of 3400 MW.
Download the Executive Summary
Download the Summary Report
New analysis from Hydro Tasmania shows the Battery of the Nation initiative offers significant potential for Tasmania and Victoria to work together to achieve an affordable, reliable clean energy future.
The white paper, How Battery of the Nation can contribute to Victoria’s energy needs and objectives, shows Tasmania can help Victoria mitigate the risks of early or unexpected coal plan retirement, including high costs and unreliable supply, while supporting its renewable energy ambitions.
How Battery of the Nation can contribute to Victoria's energy needs and objectives
Hydro Tasmania has revealed the three sites selected for further investigation into their pumped hydro potential.
The three sites - at Lake Cethana and Lake Rowallan in the North West, and near Tribute Power Station on the West Coast – were selected from the original list of 14 potential pumped hydro options around the State.
They emerged as the most promising from the studies carried out over the last 20 months as part of a $2.0 million study jointly funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Hydro Tasmania.
Find out more >>>
Analysis released by Hydro Tasmania demonstrates that additional Bass Strait interconnection would immediately unlock many hundreds of megawatts of latent dispatchable capacity in the Tasmanian hydropower system, and make it available to a transforming National Electricity Market (NEM).
The White Paper The potential of Tasmania’s renewable generation assets with more interconnection has been developed as part of Hydro Tasmania’s work to support Tasmania’s ambition to become the renewable energy Battery of the Nation.
Download the White Paper >
With the support of ARENA funding, Hydro Tasmania is advancing studies into three areas:
Building and testing models of a future Tasmanian energy landscape and the expanded role Tasmania could play in the future NEM.
Assessing high potential pumped hydro opportunities in Tasmania, to significantly boost the state’s hydropower capacity.
An assessment of projects that will improve and optimise our existing hydropower generation including the Tarraleah Power Scheme.
Future State NEM analysis-Executive Summary
Future State NEM analysis-Full Report
Pumped Hydro Knowledge Sharing Report
The findings demonstrate that Tasmania can make a significant contribution to the transformation of the NEM in coming years.
Battery of the Nation is a key part of the solution needed to support a national energy market in transition. It will deliver multiple benefits to the state – giving Tasmanians the lowest possible power prices, creating much-needed jobs in regional areas and bringing broad economic benefit to Tasmania.
Australia is going to need huge-scale renewable development in coming years and Battery of the Nation represents one of the most reliable and cost-competitive solutions for meeting Australia’s future energy needs.
Check out our frequently asked questions page and download fact sheets about our Battery of the Nation initiative.
It is still early stages but we anticipate that as work progresses, there will be opportunity for providing services to our projects.
We encourage you to check back for web site updates.
If you would like to contact us, please send us an email.