850 MW: World's largest battery storage system goes into operation in Australia

Australian energy supplier Akaysha Energy commissioned the world's largest battery storage facility, the Waratha Super Battery, in New South Wales, Australia, on Friday. The first part of the plant with a capacity of 350 MW and 750 MWh is now online. When completed, the storage facility will be able to deliver a full capacity of 850 MW and 1680 MWh.

The Waratha Super Battery is located at Lake Munmorah on the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power station on the central coast of New South Wales, around 100 km north of Sydney. The system was developed by Transgrid, who also implemented and installed the project. The battery hardware comes from Powin, a supplier of lithium iron phosphate batteries. However, the company ran into financial difficulties and had to file for insolvency in July 2025. The battery storage system is operated by Akaysha Energie, a company owned by US investment company Blackrock. The contract to build the facility was awarded by the New South Wales government.

Emergency system for grid problems

The Waratha Super Battery will store electricity from solar, wind, and hydroelectric power plants and release it when required. The system is primarily intended as a reserve if there is not enough electricity available. If there is an increased demand for electricity, additional energy can be fed into the grid to stabilize the power supply. The system can also supply reserve energy during power outages.

The battery storage system is part of a SIPS (System Integrity Protection Scheme) control system that automatically monitors 36 transmission lines in New South Wales in real time and reacts within seconds in the event of irregularities in the power grid.

“In the event of grid outages, for example due to lightning strikes, SIPS acts as a shock absorber to restore the grid to a stable state and maintain continuity of supply for consumers,” explains Jennifer Hughes, Executive General Manager of Delivery at Transgrid.

Specifically, SIPS can automatically detect potential overloads on the transmission lines that connect power generation in the north and south of New South Wales to the Sydney, New Castle, and Wollongong regions. The Waratha Super Battery is then activated to release its stored energy into the grid. At the same time, the SIPS instructs the connected solar, wind, and hydropower plants to reduce their output. This allows the supply throughout the grid to be stabilized again. For this to work, the system requires a continuous active output of at least 700 MW and a guaranteed usable energy volume of 1400 MWh.

The Waratha Super Battery should be fully operational by 2025. According to Akaysha, with its 850 MW output and 1680 MWh, it will then be the world's most powerful battery storage system in terms of output and energy storage capacity. The system, which can be fully recharged in two hours, should be able to supply up to 970,000 households with electricity for around one hour.

(olb)