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ยท Posted on
February 21, 2024

AGL just got a 'UGE battery so bye-bye coal power plants

Nothing like a big ol' battery to help reduce our reliance on coal power.

What's the key learning?

  • Australia has a wholesale electricity market where generators buy and sell electricity.
  • Power tends to be cheap for wholesalers to buy during the day and more expensive at night.
  • Having a battery allows AGL to buy power while it's cheap and store it until needed.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Background: AGL Energy is Australia's largest integrated energy, telco and utility company. It's a bit of a jack of all trades with more than 4.5 million residential and business customers across Oz.

๐Ÿ‘‰ What happened: AGL has inked a deal with French company Neoen to charge and discharge a MASSIVE (read: 70-megawatt) battery...without building it or even owning it ๐Ÿคฏ .

๐Ÿ‘‰ What else: Having virtual access to this battery will help AGL keep its power supplies stable while it closes its coal-fired plants. And, it allows AGL to take advantage of wholesale prices, which are increasingly negative.

๐Ÿ”” What's the key learning?

๐Ÿ’ก The wholesale electricity market is where generators like AGL buy and sell energy... before they sell it on to customers with a markup.

๐Ÿ’ก When solar panels are pumping during the day, power is generally cheap. At night, everyone's using power, so it can become pretty exxy. We don't feel the pain as fixed-rate consumers, but suppliers do ๐Ÿ’ธ .

๐Ÿ’ก Now AGL has a huge battery, it can buy power on the cheap and store it there. Then, it can rely on it to support customers after closing those nasty coal plants.

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