Saft supports New Zealand’s transition to low carbon electricity

Soft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, has been awarded a major contract by Meridian Energy to develop New Zealand’s first large-scale grid-connected ‘BESS’ (battery-based energy storage system). The 100 megawatt (MW) BESS, located at Rukaka in the country’s North Island, will improve the stability of the national grid as New Zealand’s intermittent renewable power generation increases. BESS is the first phase of a 130 MW solar farm by Meridian Energy.

Saft provides a fully integrated solution for the Ruakākā BESS, including batteries and power conversion equipment supply, installation, commissioning and 20 years of operational services. Scheduled to enter service in the second half of 2024, BESS will have a storage capacity of 200 megawatt hours (MWh) to support local grid demand for approximately two hours.

This versatile North Island asset will open up several new revenue streams for Meridian, with the ability to move electricity consumption to a different time slot and participate in the North Island standby electricity market. Meridian expects BESS to generate annual revenue of up to US$35 million.

Meridian Energy CEO Neal Barclay says: As intermittent renewable power generation increases in New Zealand, the BESS will help manage supply fluctuations and reduce New Zealand’s reliance on fossil fuels. Rukaka has a bold vision with a grid-scale solar farm to further accelerate our transition to a low-carbon economy. The shared infrastructure provided by BESS will significantly improve the economics of a future solar farm.

The complete energy storage system by Soft will include 40 Freemake PCSK GEN3 inverters, 20 medium voltage power stations and 80 Intensium Shift battery containers based on Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) technology with a power management system. Soft will integrate this equipment with 33kV Meridian and Transpower switchgear, SCADA and power plant.

Ideal for power time-shifting, spikes and capacity support applications, the 3 MW Intensium-Shift Containers are scalable building blocks. They can be installed in alignments with transformers with a 50% smaller system footprint, while reducing site-related operations by 50%, enabling faster deployment of storage plants at the utility scale.

With a unique combination of proven safety devices such as fire extinguishing systems or burst panels, Intensium-Shift containers benefit from a soft safety concept. The containers are fully assembled in Softin’s factories and use a modular approach that includes batteries, heating systems and digital control interfaces that connect to Softin’s cloud-based i-site data base. This data management solution ensures real-time remote monitoring of system KPIs and enables optimal asset utilization with minimal OPEX and downtime.

Soft works closely with customers, providing technical expertise and support from project initiation and engineering, through implementation and lifecycle, through decommissioning and container recycling.