February 13, 2026
The $514 million 300MW Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at Tarong Power Station has begun supplying electricity to the grid.
Construction of the Tarong Battery began in 2023.
It consists of 164 lithium-ion Tesla Megapacks and will boost Tarong power stations’ overall capacity to 2.1GW.
A Stanwell spokesperson said this meant Tarong was the single largest power generating site in Queensland.
Stanwell CEO Michael O’Rourke said Stanwell was playing a key role in establishing Queensland’s future energy portfolio, while continuing to invest in and maintain existing assets.
“This is a significant milestone for Stanwell, our first wholly owned battery project, delivered end-to-end by our team from concept through to construction, operations and maintenance,” Mr O’Rourke said.
“The 300MW battery will store energy during periods of high generation and then release it into the grid during periods of high demand, responding within fractions of a second to provide essential firming capacity and reliability.
“This exciting new chapter reflects the tireless dedication of everyone who has contributed to the project over the past two and a half years.”
The Stanwell spokesperson said the project had created 80 full-time jobs during construction as well as contract opportunities for local suppliers.
Pleased to see our local area providing energy certainty.
On a separate note or maybe related I am not sure?
We had unprecedented heatwaves in South East Australia recently but I do not recall hearing of rolling blackouts or load shedding. During previous summers the grid had not coped with the extra demand, resulting in periods of energy supply not matching demand.
Will be interesting to see or hear about any reports explaining why we handled it better this summer.
My uneducated guess would be batteries, either large-scale or attached to domestic solar systems, have reached a point where we can use stored power to supplement supply when demand previously could not be met.
How ever it was achieved, it is potentially life-saving on extreme heat days to keep the power on to be able to keep cool.
There could be even more small-scale electricity storage when people start replacing their combustion-powered cars with battery electric vehicles.
I hope this will enable Telstra, Optus and the NBN to remain available. We lost service to all three at the same time. I was told that the Telstra website said a power outage had caused the loss of service in my area. We had power but no mobile or NBN connection. It’s hard to believe that a power outage could take out all three services at the same time. If that’s the case, I feel those in authority should be investigating the situation. Imagine if this had happened in Brisbane. The media would be all over it, and the Telcos would be making excuses. Not happy Jan.