Glenrowan Battery: SEC Signs 10-Year Offtake Deal

Victoria’s state-owned energy company, SEC, has signed a 10-year agreement to buy the output of a 102-megawatt, four-hour battery that has not yet been built at the Glenrowan Solar Farm in the state’s north-east. SEC said on 2 November that the new offtake covers the solar farm and the Glenrowan battery together, replacing the contract it already holds for the farm’s solar power. The battery is “expected to proceed to construction following financial close”, SEC said. Neither SEC nor the developer has given a date for that.

What the deal supplies is a long-term buyer. The battery already has its planning permit, and the developer, Pacific Partnerships, called the contract “an important foundation for progressing the battery towards construction”. Unlike SEC’s investments in two other big batteries, no equity stake has been disclosed. The deal adds to a run of Tech for Good stories about grid storage.

The Glenrowan battery has a permit but no start date

Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning granted the planning permit on 28 May 2026 through its Development Facilitation Program. Pacific Partnerships’ project website now says the battery is “due to commence construction in 2027”. An earlier project fact sheet had pencilled in construction from the last quarter of 2026 to the first quarter of 2028, followed by operation from mid-2028 to 2053.

The planning application, prepared for Pacific Partnerships in January, describes up to 128 battery units holding up to 400 megawatt-hours, with up to 32 inverters. They would sit on about 2.7 hectares in the north-west corner of the site, at Chivers Road and Winton-Glenrowan Road. The battery would plug into the solar farm’s existing 33kV connection, which runs through 5km of underground cable to AusNet’s Glenrowan terminal station, so the fact sheet says no new external cabling is needed.

The developer puts the capital cost at up to $130 million and expects about 50 full-time construction jobs, 20 of them local, plus two ongoing roles. Wangaratta Rural City Council would receive $7.8 million over 25 years under Victoria’s payment-in-lieu-of-rates scheme.

SEC Victoria adds a contract to its battery stakes

SEC says it supplies more than 4,400 sites, about five per cent of Victoria’s electricity demand. Its first investment, the 600 MW Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub at Plumpton, began feeding the grid in December 2025 after SEC put in $245 million as co-owner. In September it agreed to invest up to $43 million for a minority stake in the 400 MW Baranduda battery at Wodonga, with a 15-year offtake for half its output.

“This agreement will allow us to make better use of the solar energy generated during the day and strengthen our ability to supply customers during periods of high demand,” said SEC chief executive Chris Miller.

The timing fits the market. In the third quarter, grid-scale batteries supplied 8.0% of the eastern grid’s evening peak against 5.1% from gas, the first quarter they beat gas, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.

A battery cut from the original solar permit

Storage was part of the plan at Glenrowan from the start. The planning report says the first solar application, lodged by ESCO Pacific in 2018, marked a spot for a future battery. When the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal granted the solar permit, it required the battery to be removed from the plans because no evidence on its noise had been put forward. Pacific Partnerships bought the project after that hearing, and the farm began commercial operations in May 2024.

SEC describes the solar farm as 102 MW. The developer gives 130MW of panel capacity, measured in direct current. David Lovell, Pacific Partnerships’ general manager for energy, said it was the first farm selected for support under the second Victorian Renewable Energy Target auction to start generating, and called the battery the company’s “first large scale BESS hybridisation”.

A contracted buyer is the step lenders look for

Batteries like this are typically financed against contracted revenue, which is why a 10-year offtake matters more to this project now than its permit does. The permit settled whether the battery may be built. The contract goes a long way to settling whether it can be paid for. It is the same pattern as Fortescue’s 20-year power deal with PLS and Scatec’s Egyptian solar and battery plant, where a long-term buyer came before the money.

SEC is using two levers here. At Plumpton and Baranduda it put in equity. At Glenrowan it is using its balance sheet only as a buyer, which spreads its support across more projects for less capital. Adding storage to a working solar farm also reuses a grid connection that already exists, so the project avoids new external cabling.

Several things remain open. Neither side has disclosed the price or other terms, or when financial close is expected. The construction start has already moved from late 2026 to 2027 on the developer’s own site. And four hours at 102 MW comes to roughly 408 megawatt-hours, slightly more than the 400 MWh cap in the planning application, a gap neither company has explained. For now, nothing is being stored at Glenrowan.

The next public step is financial close. Pacific Partnerships expects to run a combined community benefit programme for the solar farm and battery in 2027.

Victoria’s SEC Signs 10-Year Deal for Planned Glenrowan Battery

The Glenrowan battery has a permit but no start date

SEC Victoria adds a contract to its battery stakes

A battery cut from the original solar permit

A contracted buyer is the step lenders look for

Sources

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