From engineering Holden power train systems to building the world’s biggest battery energy storage system, Akaysha Energy managing director Nick Carter views every milestone as a stepping stone to the next big project.
Akaysha Energy is the new wunderkind of the Australian renewables industry, having recently been appointed by EnergyCo to deliver the Waratah Super Battery—the largest committed battery project in the southern hemisphere and the most powerful battery in the world.
The Waratah Super Battery marks Akaysha’s 10th project throughout the NEM in various stages of development, including the Orana, Ulinda Park, and Palmerston battery energy storage systems.
It’s been a meteoric rise for the company, particularly since it was backed by global investment giant BlackRock, which intends to commit over $1 billion of capital to support Akaysha’s development pipeline.
Related article: Akaysha Energy to develop NSW’s Waratah Super Battery
“It’s been a bit surreal,” Akaysha founder and managing director Nick Carter says.
“When we started Akaysha we didn’t have a lot of money—we were boot-strapping things together in order to establish our development pipeline.
“Obviously, one thing led to another with BlackRock, and with their support we knew we could attack processes like the one with the Waratah Super Battery. Every milestone we’ve viewed as a stepping stone. You reach one and then look at the next one and think ‘OK, I can get there now’.”
While Akaysha is young, Carter is a respected name in power generation, having worked for the likes of General Motors, Toyota, Gas Energy Australia, AGL, Tesla, and Macquarie.
“I worked for GM Holden for a long time on advanced power train systems, so got a lot of exposure to electric and hydrogen vehicles early on,” he explains.
“While doing my Master’s, I got really interested in power generation and started working on gas turbines and reciprocating from engines. So it was just the transition from automotive engines to stationery power, which developed into energy storage from there.”
Carter was one of the first people hired by Tesla in Australia and spent the first few months of his employment at the company’s headquarters in California, which he describes as “an incredible experience”.
From Tesla, he moved to Macquarie Group to work in the banking and investment space, and on the back of that started Akaysha.
“Akaysha is really a culmination of all the things I’ve learned over time—banking and investment at Macquarie, battery development at Tesla and engineering at General Motors. All of the people within Akyasha are very likeminded and come from similar backgrounds.
“We know what it takes to deliver projects and actually build things. Our delivery team is made up of old-school construction and renewables people. In the scheme of things, we’re at the beginning of the delivery process. The hard work starts now.”
Asked about the company’s vision for the Waratah Super Battery, Carter says much of the detail lies in the size and scale of what will be Australia’s first ‘gigawatt class’ battery storage project
“Its physical size is obviously a big deal. It’s going to require a lot of space, and it’s more akin to doing a solar farm because there are so many individual units. Because of this, some of the learnings from the solar industry are now folding back into this type of project.
“Also notable is the use case for the battery. Given it’s not necessarily a direct replacement for Eraring Power Station, it’s more about supporting the network, and allowing that existing network infrastructure to be run and used more efficiently, and allowing more renewables penetration into Sydney.
“That use case is really interesting and one I think we’ll see more and more of this in Australia and around the world. We’re looking at a two-year start-to-finish timeframe, which is a lot faster than building a new power station or a new transmission line.
“I think we’ll see a need for each state to have one or more gigawatt-class battery systems.
“The use of the existing network infrastructure and the better utilisation of that is going to be key because we just cannot build enough transmission fast enough, especially if you look at aspirational renewables targets like the one set by the Victorian Government.”
With Australia’s renewables transition now in full flight, Carter says the challenge lies in finding people, labour and consultants.
“It’s just ridiculously hard to get appropriate engineering or other consultants for projects now,” he says.
“We’ve also got a really big problem with our grid-connection process in terms of how long it takes to get assets connected. On top of that, we’ve got physical hardware and supply limitations—not just with batteries but across wind and solar. These renewables targets require people, and those people just don’t exist right now.
In addition to supporting the renewables transition within the NEM, Carter says Akaysha will turn its attention to early stage developments in Taiwan and Japan and may consider the Western Australia and New Zealand markets if the demand is there.
“It’s an exciting time. Oh, and sometimes a bit stressful, too,” Carter explains.
“Two of my children are currently sitting their Year 12 exams, and my eldest is doing her engineering exams. My wife’s a high school teacher, too, so everyone in the house is basically very busy and very stressed.
“The past four months have been absolutely nuts. I’ve kind of forgotten what I used to do in my spare time. I think I used to like riding my bike?” he laughs.
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Leader of the pack
As part of EnergyCo’s competitive auction process for the Waratah Super Battery, Akaysha Energy beat some of the biggest names in Australian energy, including AGL Energy, Origin Energy, Iberdrola, and Neoen.
The deal gives Akasyha the right to build and own the battery, backed by a near-five-year contract from EnergyCo.
As the System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS) Battery Service Provider, Akaysha will be responsible for the construction of a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) capable of providing a guaranteed continuous active power capacity of at least 700MW, and a guaranteed useable energy-storage capacity of at least 1.4GWh for the purpose of providing the SIPS Service.
The battery will act as back-up in the New South Wales energy market, increasing security and removing requirement for the grid to operate on an “N-1” basis to cover for any potential outages.
