Hithium, Fotowatio Renewable Ventures partner for first time with 500MWh grid-forming BESS in Australia

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The ∞Block, Hithium’s standardised 20-foot ISO container BESS product, was launched in 2023. It features 314Ah lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells arranged into 48 modules per enclosure.

At its launch at the RE+ 2023 trade show in September of that year, the manufacturer claimed its energy density to be 117 Wh/l. Hithium recently completed what it claimed was the world’s first ‘all-open door’ large-scale fire testing (LSFT) process, conducted by UL Solutions on a ∞Block 5MWh at full state of charge (SoC) and with all fire suppression systems deactivated.

Gnarwarre marks Hithium’s first collaboration with FRV, the Spain-headquartered developer jointly owned by Saudia Arabia’s Abdul Latif Jameel Energy and Canadian investment and asset manager OMERS Infrastructure.

FRV achieved financial close on the Gnarwarre BESS in mid-2024. FRV had announced an AU$1.2 billion (US$800 million) refinancing for a portfolio of assets in Australia in late July of last year. At the time, the company said the transaction covered 1GW of solar PV projects, but subsequently revealed a few weeks ago that the Victorian standalone BESS was included.

Hithium said its advanced inverter-integrated BESS will be capable of performing applications, including energy arbitrage and Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) and system restart services, thought to represent black start of generators and grid infrastructure. Hithium also said its customer also intends to play the asset into future capacity market procurements.   

Dutch BESS operator Return has acquired four ready-to-build (RTB) projects in Germany, while agrifood tech and renewables investor N2OFF has added BESS to a solar project it is developing there.

Hithium has announced its lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) for supporting data centres, while Storion Energy has secured its first vanadium electrolyte customer.

It’s still to early to see the financial impact on energy storage suppliers in the wake of Trump’s tariffs and legislation, writes Solar Media analyst Charlotte Gisbourne, analysing their H1 revenues.

Tesla has announced that by the end of 2026, it expects to have around 4.5GW of grid-forming battery storage operating across Australia.

Chinese lithium-ion OEM Hithium and system integrator BOS Power have signed a supply agreement for 3GWh of BESS deployments in the Nordic region.