Environment Victoria welcomes groundbreaking energy storage target

In response to the Andrews government announcement today of a new energy storage target for Victoria, Environment Victoria CEO Jono La Nauze said:

“Environment Victoria congratulates the Andrews government for this groundbreaking step in creating Australia’s most ambitious energy storage target, yet another example of Victoria leading the development of national energy policy.

“Energy storage is one of the crucial missing pieces in Australia’s transition to 100% clean energy.”

The $157 million storage target package announced today will help Victoria reach 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy storage capacity by 2030, with an increased target of 6.3GW by 2035.

“The Andrews government has already made important investments in energy storage including 10000 batteries in Victorian homes, the 300 MW grid-scale battery storage project in Geelong, and the 350 MW utility scale battery slated for Yallourn.

“Until now however, there has been no overarching plan to coordinate public and private investment in storage capacity at either at the state or federal level.”

Following this announcement today, Environment Victoria looks forward working with the Victorian government on the design of the target. Key priorities for Environment Victoria will be:

• ensuring the target can be scaled up to provide for a 100% renewable grid as soon as possible
• supporting the rapid development of the electricity storage industry in Victoria to deliver local jobs and greater renewable energy investment in Victoria
• ensuring transmission and distribution infrastructure is built to facilitate the delivery of power from storage.

“We now urge the Commonwealth and other states to work with Victoria to develop a national storage target that will enable the Albanese government to achieve its target of 82% renewables by 2030.

“Sensible environmental policy shouldn’t belong just to one side of politics.

“We urge Matthew Guy’s Coalition to make a bipartisan commitment to implement or improve the storage target should they win office, consistent with their policy of halving Victoria’s emissions by 2030.”