What grid-forming kit are Australia’s largest solar–BESS hybrids using?

Edify Energy's Smoky Creek & Guthrie's Gap hybrid solar and battery energy storage system in central Queensland is being equipped with grid-forming inverters and advanced network-support capabilities through a partnership with DT Infrastructure. The project represents one of Australia's largest solar-BESS hybrids and demonstrates the growing role of these combined systems in the grid. The specific inverter technology and control architecture are not detailed in the available reporting.

Where this fits

Grid-forming battery systems are becoming essential infrastructure because solar and wind alone cannot hold voltage and frequency: without them, a high-renewable grid becomes unstable. The need for these capabilities, hardware, software, and the expertise to tune them, is an often-hidden cost of the renewables transition. It is a cost that firm dispatchable power, including nuclear, does not impose. Australia's largest hybrid projects are now racing to solve a reliability problem that was not present when the grid was baseload-powered.

What it means

Every solar-BESS hybrid that deploys grid-forming kit is evidence of an under-counted systemic cost. The inverters themselves, batteries, control software, and integration engineering add materially to project cost and complexity. Australia remains dependent on imported inverter and battery technology, much of it sourced through supply chains anchored in China. As the grid relies more heavily on these systems for stability, energy security becomes hostage to the availability and pricing of equipment and minerals we do not control or manufacture. A firm generation fleet, whether gas or nuclear, does not require this layer of mitigation.