Portuguese clean-energy developer TagEnergy has secured Victorian government development approval for the Morwell battery energy storage system, a project designed to deliver up to 1,000 megawatts and 4,000 megawatt-hours of four-hour storage on the site of Australia's former brown-coal heartland.
A coal-country battery
The $1.3 billion Morwell BESS was originally developed by Australian renewable energy company Ace Power before TagEnergy acquired it in mid-2025. This week the company confirmed approval from the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning for a project "of up to 1000 MW/4000 MWh," enough to supply more than 344,000 homes for four hours during peak demand. The site is in Hazelwood North, 500 metres from the 500 kV Hazelwood Terminal Station that the project will connect into.
"Victoria's electricity system is changing rapidly and battery storage will be essential to ensure reliable power remains available as demand continues to grow," said Andrew Riggs, TagEnergy's managing partner for Australia.
Inside the Australian BESS pipeline
TagEnergy is also building Australia's biggest wind farm, the 1.33 GW Golden Plains project, and Morwell sits in a fast-growing pipeline of multi-gigawatt-hour Australian batteries. Recent approvals and commissionings include Eku Energy's 1,000 MWh Griffith battery, Iberdrola's 1,080 MWh Kingswood project and DNV's 98.7% availability verification of Fluence's global fleet.
Timeline and next steps
TagEnergy will now move through grid connection agreements and final pre-construction activities. The company is targeting financial close by the end of 2027, with construction taking 18 to 24 months before operations begin in late 2029. Coal generation has historically anchored the Latrobe Valley; if Morwell is built to plan, it will be a generational pivot for the region from baseload coal to dispatchable storage.
Reporting based on coverage from Renew Economy and TagEnergy statements.