CIMIC has announced the award of a contract for the expansion of a battery energy storage facility at Western Downs in Australia. The Australian contractor company, which is part of the Spanish construction group ACS, has indicated that the works will be carried out by its subsidiary UGL.
In addition to the expansion, the company had already announced months ago that UGL would carry out other projects for the renewable energy giant Neoen at its facilities about 250 kilometers from the city of Brisbane. Specifically, it had been made public that UGL would install a high-voltage infrastructure and a Tesla battery system at this energy storage center.
The American company Tesla, which manufactures, among other things, electric vehicles, will collaborate with the CIMIC subsidiary in the expansion work, which will increase the capacity of the storage battery to 270 Megawatts / 540 Megawatt-hours.
A scaling key for the energy transition
The extended battery, which is located next to Neoen’s 460 Megawatt peak Western Downs solar park, will allow the transmission of lost energy to the electricity grid as of the Australian summer of 2024-2025, according to the statement collected by Efe. The expansion of the Western Downs battery will play an important role in the transition of the energy ‘mix’ in the national energy market”, said the executive president of the CIMIC Group, Juan Santamaría.
It will also support the transition of Australia’s Queensland region, which encompasses the Western Downs, to reach its target of 70% renewable energy by 2032, the executive added. UGL, as a designer and builder of electricity generation and storage assets, has delivered nearly twenty renewable energy generation and storage projects.
In addition to UGL, the CIMIC group, specialized in construction and development of engineering, mining, and infrastructure services, includes the companies CPB Contractors, Leighton Asia and Thiess (in which it has a 50% stake) among others.
