Hepburn Energy’s new Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) has arrived at the windfarm and has been christened Bessie!
Bessie is the size of 400 household batteries and will play an important role in storing excess wind energy and supplying it to the grid when it is needed.
Hepburn Energy General Manager, Taryn Lane, said “Mid-scale community energy projects can take a long lead time to get right. As a small community organisation with limited opportunities we knew we wanted to use the opportunity of federal government grant funding of $500,000 for a minimum 500kWh community battery, as leverage to build as big a battery as was viable and that we could finance. We first contacted CORENA in May 2023 about our ambition to scale up the project and they were supportive from day 1 with the goal of adding at least $100,000 zero interest loan into the mix – and importantly, they were patient whilst we got our model and proposed scale right. We were able to attract and build on the Federal Government and CORENA funding to leverage an additional $1,000,000 of finance and deliver a 5MWh community battery at our existing wind farm – the Hepburn Energy Park in mid 2025. This was a scale 10 times larger than we originally considered. CORENA’s $120,000 loan improved our business model, and enabled us to deliver the best project for our community and co-op.”
Fundraising for our loan to this project is complete and their loan has been issued. We are so excited to have assisted with this important community energy project. You can read more in local paper, the Wombat Post, here.