This Report summarises the development, contracting, construction and commissioning of the Wallgrove Grid Battery up to the Commencement of Operations on 22 December 2021.
Report extract
The WGB will enhance system reliability and security in NSW by operating in the wholesale energy and FCAS markets in the NEM, as well as providing inertia support activities, such as fast frequency response and virtual inertia as network services. The WGB
commenced commercial operations in December 2021 and has been operated by Iberdrola Australia in the FCAS and wholesale energy markets since then.
Transgrid is seeking to test the ability of the WGB to provide synthetic inertia in place of the inertia provided by the existing synchronous technologies with rotating mass, such as coal-fired generators, hydro-power generators and gas-fired generators. These generators are synchronised because they all rotate in lockstep at the same frequency of 50 Hertz and work together to contribute to grid inertia. The inertia from these generators represents a source of stored (kinetic) energy that can be tapped for a few seconds to provide the grid time to respond to power plants going down or other system failures.
