A giant 477-tonne transformer for the Waratah Super Battery facility at Colongra was quite a spectacle as the superload convoy travelled 1,000km by road from Victoria to its final destination at the former Munmorah power station on Scenic Dr.
It arrived at about 4am on Monday, February 5, after departing Wilson Transformer Company in Glen Waverley at 10pm on January 27.
The transport combination, including two pulling trucks and two pushing trucks, measured about 125m long and about 5.8m wide, travelling at a top speed of 40km/h at night to minimise traffic disruption.
The spectacle attracted onlookers while it was parked-up at Hawkesbury River bridge at Mooney Mooney on Sunday, before the convoy set off again at about 11pm, with people looking on from overhead bridges and other vantage points along the M1 motorway.
This was first of three transformers for the Waratah Super Battery – two more are coming later in the year.
The high-voltage 350 MVA transformers will form part of the biggest energy storage battery network in the southern hemisphere.
The 850 megawatt Waratah Super Battery, comprising 2,600 battery units, will act as a kind of giant “shock absorber” for the grid, with up to 700 MW and 1,400 MWh back-up power to allow the main transmission lines feeding electricity into the major load centres in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong to be run at or near full capacity.
Transgrid is connecting the battery to the grid via its existing Munmorah substation ensuring additional energy is located near the high-growth Lake Macquarie and Central Coast regions.
Transgrid will be the network operator and Akaysha Energy the service provider responsible for constructing and operating the battery energy storage system.
Sue Murray