Coal country battery project that earned ire of state MPs joins queue for federal environmental approval

A 200 MW, four-hour battery storage project proposed near Warragul in Victoria's Gippsland has entered federal environmental assessment. Samsung C&T is developing the 800 MWh Darnum Battery Energy Storage System on former dairy farmland. The project will connect to AusNet's 220 kV transmission line and is designed to provide grid stability support. It has faced significant local opposition, including from Baw Baw Shire Council and state MPs, on grounds that it converts productive agricultural land to energy infrastructure.

Where this fits

This project exemplifies the hidden cost of a renewables-dependent grid: the need for massive, geographically dispersed firming capacity. A four-hour battery stores only the energy discharged in four hours; a weather pattern lasting days requires either overbuild or gas backup. The land-use trade-off is real. Gippsland is dairy country, and converting arable land to battery plants reflects the whole-system material footprint that renewables-only pathways incur. Firm, energy-dense nuclear power requires far less land per unit of reliable output, yet remains legally unavailable in Australia.

What it means

Australia is committing to a grid architecture that demands batteries at scale scattered across productive regions. Each project will face the same land-use friction, environmental review cycles, and community resistance. The alternative, firm dispatchable power from a small nuclear station, would occupy a fraction of the footprint and run on an indefinite fuel cycle, but is excluded by law. The Darnum project is not a failure; it is a symptom of the cost structure Australia has chosen to bear.