Victoria to Build Australia's First Compressed CO2 Battery

In short:

The Victorian government has announced a plan to build a carbon dioxide-powered battery in the Latrobe Valley.

The battery is slated to be the first of its kind in Australia and form part of a renewable energy hub near the closed power station at Hazelwood.

What's next?

A construction timeline is yet to be revealed, but the government says it expects the project to support 66 new jobs in the region.

The Victorian government has unveiled a plan to build an Australian-first compressed CO2 battery storage system in the heart of the state's coal country.

The 20-megawatt closed-loop battery, which will be powered by compressed carbon dioxide from Gippsland's Longford gas plant, will be built adjacent to the old Hazelwood power station, the brown coal-fired electricity plant that powered the state for decades.

The battery will have three times the energy storage capacity of a large scale lithium-ion battery and store renewable energy produced during the day to be used in the grid overnight.

Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said the battery would be part of a 143-hectare renewable energy hub aimed at reducing power prices.

"This ia a very important next step in the build-out of the technologies that the SEC is renowned for, and will deliver on behalf of the Victorian people, especially here in the Gippsland region near Morwell," she said.

SEC is a government-owned renewable energy company.

The government is yet to reveal a timeline for the project, but it is understood consultation work will take place in the coming years.

Ms D'Ambrosio said the battery was the first of a number of projects slated for the eastern Victorian site and that construction would support 66 jobs.

"We know that we're going to need, in Victoria, more long-duration storage technologies to support the transition to 95 per cent renewable electricity by 2035," she said.

How does an air compression battery work?

SEC acting executive head of assets Lane Crockett said the battery would take carbon dioxide at low pressure and compress it into liquid form.

"Then that energy is basically stored as a liquid, and it can be expanded when you need the energy," he said.

"The beauty of carbon dioxide as a gas is it's nonflammable, it's non-toxic, and the gas is such that you are able to store it without having to make it colder to make it into a liquid."

The battery's reserve of carbon dioxide, which will be provided by the Longford gas plant, will only need to be filled once for the 30-year life of the battery.

Mr Crockett said the project would involve a mix of offshore and domestic construction.

The state government said the works were part of a $4.6 billion investment into jobs in the Latrobe-Gippsland region.