Contact Energy - CEN Chart

[BlackPeter]

Yet another alternative.

Canberra megabattery to hold 250MW. Onslow expected to hold....1000-1200MW?? depending on which news source you read (Newsroom v Stuff).

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-...ergy/102217104

"Expected to be online in 2025, the battery energy storage system will cost between $300 million and $400 million".
Looks like construction hasnt started yet.

....so one can be built in about 2 years? Maybe 4-5 of them would roughly match Onslow?? No birds or lizards displaced and maybe total under $2bn in a 2-4 year timeframe plus you could put them in the North Is where needed.
Just charge them during summer with a solar field.

There must be a catch of course, be interested to hear what that is from those in the know. I didnt see Contact's presentation refer to any alternatives.....
(thanks RTM by the way)

I am sure there are better alternatives than lake Onslow. However - while your calculation looks at face value sensible, I think that you did fall victim of reports written by reporters not understanding the difference between storage capacity (measured in kWh, MWh, GWh or TWh) and generating power (measured in kW - or MW).

Just to clarify the units: 1TWh (i.e. 1 Tera Watt hour) = 1000 GWh, 1 GWh = 1000 MWh, 1 MWh = 1000 kWh; 1 MW = 1000 kW;

100 MW might be the generating capacity of the turbines - i.e. they could produce 100 MWh - every hour.

The storage capacity is a different thing. This is how long you could supply the 100 MW capacity before the lake is empty. For Lake Onslow this would be something like 5 Tera watt hours - i.e. 50,000 hrs of 100 MW generation. This is a lot of energy if you want to put it into batteries.