SUDDENLY, it seems, the electricity market is on the move, and a variety of renewables projects are hitting the headlines across the grid.
On Monday, Kurri Kurri smelter site developer Jeff McCloy said word was close on a major solar array at the Loxford site that Snowy Hydro has earmarked for a possible gas-fired turbine.
This land carries the attraction, for energy providers, of high-voltage transmission lines that once brought power to the smelter but which can be adapted to carry electricity the other way.
Today, we report news from a specialist renewable energy firm, CEP.Energy, which has unveiled plans for what it claims will be Australia's biggest battery, also at Kurri, but at the Hunter Economic Zone or HEZ site, about four kilometres south of Loxford, on the other side of the town.
CEP Comes to town:
The first thing to stress is that not every project announced in the early stages makes it to fruition.
But as money chases opportunity, we are witnessing a "gold rush" of sorts, with relatively small but nimble players able to play a role in a system previously been dominated by a handful of behemoths.
CEP.Energy is one such company.
Its Kurri proposal is one of a number of projects it's recently unveiled, as it moves to execute a strategy that includes larger-scale rooftop solar, which it believes can substantially reduce power costs for the industries inside the buildings.
While a battery farm that helps support solar and wind generators could normally expect to receive environmental support, the HEZ site is a controversial choice, as the immediate opposition to the announcement makes clear.
CEP chief executive Peter Wright says he knows its history, as will his chairman and fellow CEP shareholder, Morris Iemma, who was in state parliament for much of the long-running HEZ controversy.
The CEP announcement could also have an impact on the Snowy Hydro turbine.
Snowy Hydro is a federal government corporation, and the government's preference is for the private sector to replace the grid capacity that will be lost when Liddell power station is decommissioned in 2023 - coincidentally the same year that CEP says its battery should be on line.
Whatever happens from here with the three potential Kurri projects, it is safe to say that an energy revolution is under way.
A revolution that needs to succeed if coal is to be phased out as our major power source.
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