Doosan Heavy subsidiary secures W100 bil. ESS project in Australia

A bird's eye view of an energy storage system planned to be built by Doosan GridTech in Queensland, Australia / Courtesy of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction

By Kim Jae-heun

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction said Tuesday that its American subsidiary Doosan GridTech has won a bid to build an energy storage system (ESS) in Queensland, Australia.

The 100 billion won deal, signed with Singapore-based Vena Energy, is the largest ESS project that the Doosan Heavy unit has ever obtained.

Vena Energy is a renewable energy developer operating in the Asia-Pacific region with projects in Australia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan.

Doosan GridTech will be responsible for engineering, procurement and construction for the project until 2021 based on its own ESS software and system integration capabilities.

The 1500-megawatt-hour ESS in Queensland will provide electricity to 23,000 households a day.

ESS combines digital technology and eco-friendly energy to manage peak electric demand and stabilize the output of renewable power sources.

The ESS planned for Queensland is a peak-reduction type that directly connects to the power grid in the province by applying the Doosan GridTech-Intelligent Controller, the company's control software. It will be operated by an arbitrage method that stores electricity generated during low-use hours and supplies it during peak hours.

“We have proved our company's ESS technology and its competitiveness once again through this deal. We will expand our business in the rapidly growing ESS market in Australia through this project,” a Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction official said.

The demand for ESS in Australia is continuously increasing. According to energy market analysis firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the ESS market in Australia is expected to grow to more than 20 times its current size over the next 10 years.