Zen Energy's first big battery, with vital storage, to operate from Templers, north of Adelaide, from 2025
Zen Energy's first big battery, with 111 megawatts of power for the grid and 270 megawatt hours storage capacity, would be sited at Templers near Gawler, north of Adelaide. Besides being involved in the zero emissions ambition of South Australia, where the compnay started, it had links to wider Australia renewables projects (see inset).
South Australian-born green electricity retailer ZEN Energy bought the rights to its first grid-scale $200 million battery project – the state's second largest – to be built north of Adelaide and due to be commissioned in 2025.
The Templers Battery Project, 60 kilometres north of Adelaide near Gawler, would be able to deliver up to 111 megawatts of power into the grid and store 270 megawatt hours of energy. Approvals to connect to the grid were obtained by previous owner RES, the world’s largest independent renewable energy company.
ZEN Energy, founded in South Australia by Richard Turner in 2004, merged with Sanjeev Gupta’s SIMEC group of companies in 2017. The arrangement split in 2020 into SIMEC Energy Australia and ZEN Energy that kept the energy hardware solutions and retail energy businesses and was headed by professor Ross Garnaut.
ZEN hoped the Templers project would boost electricity supply reliability as South Australia moved towards being 100% renewable energy by 2027. It was ZEN’s first battery project, with the company previously building renewable energy infrastructure with solar and wind farms. The Templers project would be owned entirely by ZEN entering into a 100% tolling offtake agreement with companies that supply the battery with energy. The firm said the project was “enabled through the South Australian government’s commitment to a long-term energy contract with the company”. Investment partners on the project included alternative investment firm Stonepeak and French bank Natixis. Superannuation fund Future Super also invested $30 million in ZEN’s corporate note with the capital “integral to projects like the Templers battery and enabling ZEN to retain 100 % ownership of the asset”.
ZEN chief executive Anthony Garnaut said reaching the final investment decision for the Templers battery was “a key milestone in ZEN’s significant growth path and marks our first 100% owned major asset, in the state where we started." ZEN planned to use the Templers battery to support delivering dispatchable fast-response generation and load into the South Australian energy market energy as well as for grid-stability across the wider National Electricity Market. T
he group signed its first major electricity customer in 2019 and secured offtakes with about 20 renewable projects while also progressing its own projects. Customers included the South Australian government, CSIRO (commonwealth scientific industrial research organisation) sites across the eastern states and the Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, comprising 25 local councils.
In 2024, Zen Energy raised $43 millio, to allow it to complete its Templers battery and the Solar River hybrid solar-plus-battery project near Robertstown in South Australia, targeted for a final investment decision in 2025. The funding ca,e from a deal with Taiwan’s HD Renewable Energy Co that bought shares in Zen equivalent to 9.7% cent of its expanded equity base.
From beginnings in 2004, ZEN Energy continued to provide solar and energy storage solutions to homes, businesses, communities, townships and councils across Australia. It supported Carbon Neutral Adelaide and City of Adelaide efforts to become the world’s first carbon neutral city. It was also involved in the the South Australian state government storage demonstration project of behind-the-meter energy storage on four high profile commercial buildings with the government and the City of Adelaide. Believed to be a world first, it included more than 500kWhs (kilowatt hours) of energy storage across the state library, Art Gallery of South Australian, Adelaide High School and the City of Adelaide public works depot.
The company also developed its own ZEN Freedom PowerBank for off-grid energy storage.
