RWE has received official approval from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and the Transmission Network Service Provider Transgrid to operate Australia’s first eight-hour Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at full capacity (RWE press release, 27/05/2026). The Limondale BESS consists of 144 Tesla Megapacks, which are uniquely registered to charge at 100 MW and discharge at 50 MW. The project is situated within the designated South-West Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) in New South Wales (NSW), directly next to RWE’s 314 MW Limondale solar park.
The system will be capable of delivering its maximum registered discharge output for more than eight hours, corresponding to a storage capacity of at least 400 MWh, making it the longest-duration battery currently operating in Australia.
The announcement comes as RWE recently secured a contract for its Theodore Wind Farm (Theodore Energy Development, 1 GW) under Tender 7 of the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), which awarded 19 projects with a combined capacity of 7.8 GW, including hybrid projects totalling 2 GW/7.9 GWh of storage (KEI, 27/05/2026).