Origin Energy has commenced construction of its 460 megawatt super battery on the site of Eraring Power Station.
Origin executives, project team members and Awabakal Indigenous community representatives participated in a sod turning and smoking ceremony to cleanse and ward off bad spirits on Thursday.
Origin announced in April that it would proceed with stage one of the project.
The battery storage system, which is due to come online in the final quarter of the 2025 calendar year, will have a dispatch duration of two hours.
Origin has the option to increase the battery to 700 megawatts and four hours dispatch duration in the future.
"We're delighted to get Origin's first battery development officially underway and we're particularly grateful to have Aunty Cheryl and Uncle Ray join us to provide a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony," Origin's head of energy supply and operations Greg Jarvis said.
"Today marks the beginning of work for our construction teams as we take an important step in our transformation of the Eraring site for the future and work to deliver a battery system that will help support the growth in renewables occurring in the National Energy Market.
Since announcing its decision to progress with stage one of the project, Origin teams have been preparing for full scale construction activities by progressing detailed engineering ordering and procuring plant and equipment and overseeing factory acceptance testing of key components like inverters.
"Between now and early 2024 we hope to level and prepare the 12.5-hectare site, which will involve excavating 230,000 cubic metres and placing 157,000 cubic metres of site-won material," Mr Jarvis said.
Following this, we will take delivery of over 140 inverter units and 70 medium voltage transformers, before 840 battery enclosures begin arriving in the middle of next year."
The Eraring battery project received initial planning approval from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment in May 2022.
Battery equipment will be supplied by Finnish technology group Wrtsil, design and construction services will be provided by Enerven, a subsidiary of SA Power Networks, while Lumea (the commercial arm of Transgrid) will complete all substation works.
