"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."
Tasmania stands ready to play a much greater role in delivering more clean, reliable and affordable energy to the National Electricity Market.
Tasmania has significant potential in the future development of wind and hydropower, coupled with more transmission and interconnection. It's 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.
Hydro Tasmania's Battery of the Nation initiative is about developing a pathway of future development opportunities in hydropower system expansion including the potential redevelopment of the Tarraleah hydropower scheme and a pumped hydro project at Lake Cethana. "Just as past generations built Tasmania’s iconic hydropower schemes we rely on for renewable energy today, the Battery of the Nation concept will be a lasting legacy we leave for the generations of Tasmanians that follow us. Hydro Tasmania has a key role to play in supporting large scale adoption of renewable energy in this country."
- Evangelista Albertini, Hydro Tasmania CEO
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.
Lake Cethana has been selected as Hydro Tasmania’s preferred site of its top three Tasmanian pumped hydro opportunities and it will now progress to final feasibility.
Opportunities at Lake Cethana and Lake Rowallan in Tasmania’s North West and near Tribute Power Station on the West Coast have been assessed on a range of technical, environmental, social and economic factors as part of Hydro Tasmania’s pumped hydro feasibility study.
The announcement comes alongside the signing of a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Tasmanian and Australian Governments, marked by a visit from the Prime Minister, Tasmanian Premier and Federal and State Energy Ministers to Trevallyn Power Station.
The MOU outlines a shared path forward for further progressing the new 1500MW interconnector Marinus Link and the pumped hydro and hydropower upgrade opportunities that form the Battery of the Nation.
The first 750MW cable will trigger upgrades to Hydro Tasmania’s existing hydropower fleet to increase capacity, which includes a potential redevelopment of the Tarraleah power scheme.
That redevelopment opportunity has received strong support from State and Australian Governments, with a commitment to identify and refine support mechanisms for the project. Thanks to funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, Hydro Tasmania has been considering how the scheme could be reimagined for the future. A $650 million redevelopment of Tarraleah could increase the scheme’s responsiveness, flexibility and double its generation capacity.
The announcement comes alongside the signing of a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Tasmanian and Australian Governments to progress Battery of the Nation.
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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.
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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.