Quinbrook to build 2000MWh battery at Supernode data storage site in Queensland

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners has revealed plans to build Australia’s largest battery storage installation – 2000MWh – to support a large data storage center close to Brisbane in southeast Queensland.

The 800MW/2000MWh “Supernode” battery project proposes to support data centers, provide service that can be delivered to the grid, strengthen additional renewable energy capacity, and act as a “stop” to reduce the risk of blackouts in Queensland.

The project is separate from the Lockyer 1,000MWh battery storage project Quinbrook is also seeking to build in Queensland, as part of plans to convert peak gas generation plans to battery storage.

This project is one of a number of large-scale battery storage projects currently being proposed across Australia, and would be the largest if proceeded now, although it could also be terminated by competing projects.

Quinbrook said the project site, adjacent to the South Pine substation in Brendale, offers unmatched power supply access and redundancy with the support of three separate high-voltage transmission connections.

The site will also cut a new Torus dark fiber data cable currently under construction that will directly connect Brisbane to the international submarine cable that recently landed at Maroochydore from Guam.

Combined with the company’s planned multi-tenant campus of up to four hyperscale data centers, Quinbrook said large batteries, high-capacity power connections and renewable energy will offer data center customers significant cost savings in the future.

Quinbrook also aims to acquire, develop and build the renewable energy supply capacity required by Supernode customers as their energy demand increases.

The company is one of Australia’s largest and most ambitious energy investors, and recently announced its “return” to the Australian market following the federal government’s shift from Coalition to Labor – and marked its plans for the largest battery to be given planning approval on the east coast.

At a media briefing in May, immediately after the election, the company’s managing director and co-founder, David Scaysbrook, gave a sharp assessment of the policies of the previous Coalition government: “We gave up,” he said.

“Queensland can now compete more aggressively with the rest of Australia on cost base, operating sustainability and latency to attract leading data storage operators and create the foundations needed for the next digital age,” Scaysbrook said Friday.

“As Queenslanders, the Quinbrook founders are thrilled that we can play our part in helping support the power grid at a critical stage of the state’s energy transition when prices are high and volatility is rampant.

With Supernode, we will help attract new digital industries to come and thrive here and thrive in a sustainable manner using locally produced, low-cost, carbon-free renewable power and excellent data connectivity,” said Scaysbrook.

“This is the critical communications infrastructure required by progressive industries in this State and that
is a competitive advantage in achieving low cost Net Zero operations that can be
the jealousy of competing economies around the world.”

The Brendale, Queensland project follows up on the green data center campus that Quinbrook is developing at Temple, in Austin, where the initial phase began operations last month.

The Queensland Supernode BESS adds to several of the major battery projects Quinbrook is developing in the US and UK including the $2 billion+ Gemini solar+BESS project in Nevada, which it said recently closed the largest-ever financing for a single US renewable energy project.

In the UK, the company is building a 230MW/460MWh facility that will be located on the site of a former coal-fired power plant.

In Australia, a gas project that culminated in Quinbrook is being developed in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley under the federal government’s failed New Generation Investment Underwriting scheme which has since turned into a battery storage project.

Giles Parkinson is the founder and editor of Renew Economy, as well as the founder of One Step Off The Grid and the founder/editor of the EV-focused The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 40 years and is a former business editor and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.

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