Australia’s largest registered battery storage site is Birriwa BESS in New South Wales, at 1,840 megawatt hours of reported nameplate storage capacity in the AEMO Generation Information July 2026 release. AEMO classes it as publicly announced, and only one entry in the top 20 carries the in-service class: Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2 in Queensland, sixth on the list at 1,019.2 MWh. [1] Every ranked figure below comes from that one release. It sits in our energy storage research.
TL;DR
- Ranked by reported capacity, the largest entries sit above the built fleet. 51 of the 580 sites report 799.3 MWh or more, and one of the top 20 is in service. [1]
- Every row is a battery storage unit. Some are registered under the wind farm, solar farm or water treatment plant they sit beside, so a site name is not a technology. [1]
- 251 of the 580 rows report zero, which makes a registration and a stated capacity two different things. [1]
- Published figures for the same site disagree because they mix power ratings with energy figures, project totals with single connection points, and dates. [2] [3]
- Take the capacity from the release and the build status from the status column or the operator. [1]
What does the AEMO Generation Information release record?
The AEMO Generation Information July 2026 release records the storage capacity reported for each registered generator in the National Electricity Market, in a field named Agg Nameplate Storage Capacity (MWh). [1] Glamdring extracted every row on the Generator Information sheet whose technology type is battery storage: 619 unit rows. Units that share a site name and region were summed into one site, giving 588 sites. Eight have no site owner recorded and are left out, which leaves 580. [1] 329 of them report a capacity above zero and 251 report zero. [1] The field reports a capacity and does not measure one. [1]
Generation Information sits inside AEMO’s forecasting and planning data, and the storage column is one field in a register that also covers generation. Each row carries a region code, NSW1 for Birriwa BESS and QLD1 for Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2. [1]
How this ranking was built
Glamdring Research sorted the 580 sites by Agg Nameplate Storage Capacity (MWh), highest first, and kept the extract’s order where two figures tie. [1] The table below shows the 25 largest. Beyond summing the units at one site, no figure was converted or adjusted, so a project registered under four site names still appears four times. [1] Our methodology sets that rule: publish the field as it stands, then name what it leaves out.
A rank here is a rank on a reported figure, and the extract gives no grouping key. Goyder BESS and Goyder BESS Stage 2 both report 800.9 MWh. The Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub appears as Side B, Connection A3, Connection A1 and Connection A2. Summerfield BESS and Summerfield North are separate rows at 1,065.4 MWh and 940 MWh. A reader who wants one line per project has to group those rows, and the release does not say whether a repeated figure describes one site at two stages or two separate projects. [1]
Which battery storage sites are largest, on the 31 July 2026 release?
Birriwa BESS leads at 1,840 MWh, and Glamdring Research ranked the 25 largest entries in the release across four states: South Australia and Victoria hold seven each, New South Wales six and Queensland five. [1] The release itself is not ranked. The order is Glamdring’s sort on reported capacity.
| # | Site | State | Status | Reported MWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birriwa BESS | New South Wales | Publicly Announced | 1,840 |
| 2 | Lockyer Valley Energy Project | Queensland | Publicly Announced | 1,600 |
| 3 | Armidale BESS | New South Wales | Publicly Announced | 1,550 |
| 4 | Nebo BESS | Queensland | Publicly Announced | 1,200 |
| 5 | Summerfield BESS | South Australia | Committed* | 1,065.4 |
| 6 | Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2 | Queensland | In Service | 1,019.2 |
| 7 | Mt Piper BESS | New South Wales | Anticipated | 999.9 |
| 8 | Joel Joel BESS | Victoria | Anticipated | 999.7 |
| 9 | MegaLink BESS | South Australia | Publicly Announced | 999.7 |
| 10 | Holloway - Battery | New South Wales | Publicly Announced | 999.6 |
| 11 | Opal BESS | South Australia | Publicly Announced | 999.6 |
| 12 | Kerang Battery Plant | Victoria | Publicly Announced | 979.2 |
| 13 | Romani Standalone BESS | New South Wales | Publicly Announced | 960 |
| 14 | Summerfield North | South Australia | Publicly Announced | 940 |
| 15 | Cooba Solar Farm - KCI | Victoria | Publicly Announced | 912 |
| 16 | The Block BESS | Queensland | Publicly Announced | 885.1 |
| 17 | Kiamal BESS | Victoria | Publicly Announced | 880 |
| 18 | Romani Solar Farm | New South Wales | Publicly Announced | 864 |
| 19 | Lower Wonga Solar Farm and BESS | Queensland | Committed | 843 |
| 20 | North Yarragon BESS - KCI | Victoria | Publicly Announced | 840 |
| 21 | Goyder BESS | South Australia | Anticipated | 800.9 |
| 22 | Goyder BESS Stage 2 | South Australia | Anticipated | 800.9 |
| 23 | Koolunga Battery Energy Storage System | South Australia | Publicly Announced | 800.8 |
| 24 | Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub - Side B | Victoria | Publicly Announced | 800.8 |
| 25 | Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub Connection A3 | Victoria | In Service | 800.8 |
Every row in the table comes from the same release and the same field. [1]
Seventeen of the 25 are publicly announced, four are anticipated, one is committed, one carries the asterisk beside committed, and two are in service. [1] The largest entry with an in-service class is Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2 at 1,019.2 MWh, and the next in-service row is 25th: Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub Connection A3 at 800.8 MWh. [1]
The distance between the first row and the built fleet is the shape of the list. Birriwa BESS reports 820.8 MWh more than the largest in-service entry. Whether the announced rows get built is a separate question, and this release does not answer it. [1]
Where the rest of the 580 rows sit
51 of the 580 rows report 799.3 MWh or more, 99 report 600 MWh or more and 186 report 400 MWh or more. [1] The 143 rows with a figure below 400 MWh run down to 4 MWh, and 251 rows report zero. [1]
Two round numbers hold the middle of the list. Twenty rows report exactly 800 MWh and twenty-nine report exactly 400 MWh, so the band between 400 and 800 MWh reads as blocks of identical figures. [1] The smallest figures above zero belong to batteries at Kennedy Energy Park at 4 MWh, Christies Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant at 4.3 MWh and Bolivar Waste Water Treatment at 5 MWh. [1]
The distribution is why a ranking like this one needs its thresholds stated. A reader who wants the top of the market can work with the first 51 rows. A reader who wants everything with a figure has 329 rows to sort through, and the last 251 rows on the register carry no capacity at all. [1]
Why published capacity figures disagree with the registry
The disagreements below come down to three things: the unit reported, the scope of the figure and the date of the document. Glamdring Research checks each published figure against the release row for the same site. [1] Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2 shows what a date does.
The release reports 1,019.2 MWh for Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2, the largest in-service entry in the list. [1] Renew Economy reported on 6 September 2025 that the site’s second stage was complete and that Western Downs was sized at 540 MW and 1,040 MWh, overtaking Tarong BESS as the biggest in Queensland. [2] The two energy figures sit 20.8 MWh apart and the documents are roughly eleven months apart.
The Victorian Big Battery shows the same drift over a longer period. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation page for the project, last updated in July 2021, describes the 300 MW Victorian Big Battery as midway through construction. [4] Renew Economy put the same battery at 450 MWh in September 2025. [2] The release reports 470 MWh. [1] A reader working from the 2021 page treats a completed battery as a construction site, and a reader working from the 2025 report lands 20 MWh under the registry figure.
Scope explains the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub. SEC Victoria described the project in September 2024 as a 600 MW battery with three components providing 1.6 gigawatt hours, enough to power up to 200,000 homes at peak. [3] The release carries four rows for the hub: Side B and Connection A3 at 800.8 MWh each, and Connections A1 and A2 at 399.8 MWh each. [1] Those four rows total 2,401.2 MWh, the release does not group them as one project, and neither document reconciles the two totals.
For Blyth BESS the gap runs the other way. The release reports 400 MWh for the site in South Australia and classes it as in service. [1] Renew Economy put Neoen’s Blyth battery at 237 MW and 274 MWh in the same September 2025 report. [2] The release carries one Blyth row and does not say whether the figure covers the original build or a later stage.
Compare the unit, the scope and the date before two capacity numbers go side by side. Renew Economy reports both a power rating in megawatts and an energy figure in megawatt hours for Western Downs. The release carries only the energy figure. A registry row covers one registered connection point, and a project announcement covers the site. [1] [2]
What the ranking cannot tell you
Every row is a battery storage unit, but the site name does not always say so. Several batteries are registered under the wind farm, solar farm or water plant they sit beside. [1] Ben Bullen Wind Farm reports 800 MWh of battery storage, Mt Challenger Wind Farm 720 MWh, Adelaide Desalination Plant 12.6 MWh and Christies Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant 4.3 MWh. [1]
Three other limits matter when the numbers travel. The extract carries no power rating, so nothing here says how fast a site discharges. It carries no commissioning date, so a row at 1,840 MWh and a row at 4 MWh look equally current. And 251 rows report zero, which puts sites on the register with no stated storage capacity. [1]
Summerfield BESS, fifth in the list at 1,065.4 MWh, carries the class Committed*. AEMO defines it as projects with known timing that partially meet the planning or contracts commitment criteria and satisfy the other four. [1] The other class names in the top 25 are Publicly Announced, Anticipated, Committed and In Service. [1] The extract also holds no site from Western Australia or the Northern Territory, so the list stops at the edge of the National Electricity Market. [1]
AEMO records 1,840 MWh for Birriwa BESS. That is a registry figure and not a measured output. [1]
Every figure here is dated to the 31 July 2026 release, and the ranking changes when AEMO publishes the next one. The revision will carry a change note and its sources: subscribe to the email briefing.
Frequently asked questions
What is Australia’s biggest battery project?
By reported storage capacity it is Birriwa BESS in New South Wales at 1,840 MWh, which AEMO classes as publicly announced. [1] By build status the largest is Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2 in Queensland at 1,019.2 MWh, classed as in service. [1] By power rating the question has no answer in this release, because the extract carries no megawatt figure for any site. [1]
Is there a BESS project in NSW, Australia?
New South Wales holds six of the 25 largest rows in the release, including Birriwa BESS at 1,840 MWh, Armidale BESS at 1,550 MWh and Mt Piper BESS at 999.9 MWh. [1] South Australia and Victoria hold seven rows each and Queensland holds five, so the top of the list is spread across all four mainland states in the National Electricity Market. [1]
Which is the largest battery storage site in Australia reported as in service?
Western Downs Battery - Stage 1 And 2 in Queensland, at 1,019.2 MWh. [1] Renew Economy reported its second stage as 270 MW and 540 MWh and complete on 6 September 2025, six weeks ahead of schedule. [2] The next in-service row in the release is Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub Connection A3 at 800.8 MWh, ranked 25th. [1]
What does the asterisk after Committed mean?
It is an AEMO commitment class. AEMO defines Committed* as projects with known timing that partially meet the planning or contracts commitment criteria and satisfy the other four commitment criteria. [1] Summerfield BESS in South Australia carries it at 1,065.4 MWh, fifth in this ranking. [1]
Source notes
Sources checked
Vendor-owned pages establish current product and pricing claims. They do not prove comparative superiority. Glamdring states the source class so readers can judge each claim.