Australia’s first sodium-sulphur battery deployed at IGO’s Nova mine
The battery unit being trialled at IGO’s site can function in extreme heat conditions without the need for air conditioning.
Australia’s first large-scale sodium-sulphur battery has been installed at critical minerals producer IGO’s (ASX: IGO) Nova nickel-copper-cobalt mine in Western Australia.
The battery energy storage system is a scalable modular base unit of 250 kilowatts/1.45 megawatts-per-hour designed to be installed at gigawatt scale, making it suitable for large-scale energy storage applications of six hours or more.
The system is also capable of functioning in extreme heat conditions without the need for air conditioning – an important consideration for many remote mine sites in Australia which operate in hot, arid climates.
The demonstration unit adds to the existing Nova solar farm and IGO’s separate investment in a 10MWh battery storage system. The company has claimed Nova is one of the first WA mine sites with the capability to run 100% on renewable energy for nine straight hours over summer and spring.
IGO acting chief executive officer Matt Dusci said the battery trial at Nova is an “important way to field test the suitability of this unique technology in a mining environment and how this will contribute to a clean energy future”.
Commercially mature technology
The demonstration unit was deployed as part of the miner’s investment in the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre’s (FBICRC) national battery testing project, which is run by researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
While this is the first time a sodium-sulphur battery has been installed for a large-scale operation in Australia, FBICRC chief executive officer Shannon O’Rourke said the technology is commercially mature and has been successfully installed and operated at over 250 sites worldwide over the past 20 years.
“These field developments help build market confidence, train our workforce and build capability in the contracting community,” he said.
The unit was deployed and is being monitored by BASF’s Australian engineering, procurement and construction partner Allset Energy alongside FBICRC’s National Battery Testing Centre team.
The University of Western Australia will use performance data to model the battery to better understand the energy storage system and how it can be best utilised within Australian power infrastructure.
The news comes as IGO announced last week it had secured land in Western Australia next to its Kwinana lithium hydroxide refinery for a proposed integrated battery material facility.