Saft has been awarded a major contract by Meridian Energy to construct New Zealand’s first large-scale grid-connected BESS. Located at Ruakākā in the country’s North Island, the 100-megawatt (MW) BESS will improve the stability of the national grid, with the increase of intermittent renewable power generation in New Zealand. The BESS is the first stage of a project that will contain the construction of a co-located 130 MW solar farm by Meridian Energy.
Saft is offering a completely integrated solution for the Ruakākā BESS, including supply of battery and power conversion equipment, installation, commissioning and 20 years operational services. Scheduled to enter service in the second half of 2024, the BESS will have storage capacity of 200 megawatt-hours (MWh) to support the local grid demand for around two hours.
This versatile North Island asset will open multiple new revenue streams for Meridian, with the ability to load shift between price periods and participate in the North Island reserve electricity market. Meridian anticipates that the BESS will deliver annual revenues of up to $35 million (USD).
Suited to energy time-shifting, peaking and capacity support applications, Intensium-Shift 3 MWh containers are scalable building blocks. They can be installed in line-ups with power conversion equipment with a 50% smaller system footprint, while reducing 50% of site-related activities, allowing a faster deployment of utility-scale storage plants.
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