Eku commissions Canberra's 250 MW battery as Croatia opens 60 MW BESS

Four grid battery projects made news between November 4 and November 9, 2026: a commissioning in Canberra, an opening in Croatia, a third joint project in Bavaria and a federal environmental referral in Victoria. Two of them sit at opposite ends of the revenue question. Croatia's new battery runs with no guaranteed revenue, its developer says; Canberra's comes with a A$368 million support charge from the territory government.

Eku commissions the 250 MW / 500 MWh Williamsdale battery

Eku Energy has commissioned the 250 MW / 500 MWh Williamsdale battery in the Australian Capital Territory, enough to power one-third of Canberra for two hours during peak demand, the company said on November 5. It uses Tesla Megapack 2 XL batteries, with Consolidated Power Projects as balance of plant contractor and Evoenergy as the distribution network service provider. ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said it marks the completion of the Big Canberra Battery project.

It arrived a year late, and with a public price attached. The ACT government and Eku had first announced the system was expected to be completed in 2025, and the date was later extended to early 2026, which was also not realised, ABC News reported. Barr said the government would pay Eku a A$368 million support charge in instalments across 15 years; the territory is entitled to 50 per cent of the battery's net revenue, and Barr said he expected the project to become revenue-positive. Williamsdale adds to a busy year: nine utility-scale batteries totalling 2,295 MW and 7,132 MWh were commissioned across Australia in the first half of 2026 alone, by the Clean Energy Council's count.

NGEN and NextGrid open Croatia's 60 MW / 120 MWh BESS Šibenik

NGEN and Croatian investment platform NextGrid Energy have opened BESS Šibenik, a 60 MW / 120 MWh battery that NGEN calls the first standalone battery storage system of this size connected to the Croatian transmission grid, NGEN said on November 5. The opening ceremony took place on November 4 at the IMPOL-TLM industrial complex. Built from Tesla Megapack XL and 2XL units on the 110 kV grid, it can draw or feed power for around two hours at full output.

The whole battery already has one job. Since September 2026 its entire capacity has been dedicated to automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR) under a contract with HOPS, the Croatian transmission system operator. Even so, NGEN says it operates without guaranteed revenues: income depends on demand for flexibility services, and the market risk is borne entirely by its owners and investors, who include the EBRD, Raiffeisen pension funds and IE-ENERGY alongside a grant from the EU Modernisation Fund.

ju:niz and Envision expand their partnership with the 442 MWh Smareg 13 project

ju:niz Energy and Envision Energy are moving to a much larger project before their first two are finished. The partners are expanding their partnership with Smareg 13 (Vöhringen II), a 442 MWh battery energy storage project in Bavaria and their third together, bringing their joint total to nearly 600 MWh, ju:niz said on November 9. The first two, 88.4 MWh at Baindt and 52.2 MWh at Schöningen, were announced at Intersolar Europe and come to 140.6 MWh, so Smareg 13 alone is more than three times their combined size by our arithmetic. "Moving forward with a significantly larger project before our first two projects have completed delivery demonstrates Envision's role as a trusted long-term technology partner," said Envision's Henry Peng.

ju:niz is responsible for the project's development, financing and realization and will operate it. Smareg 13 is to use Envision's Gen 8 platform, with four-hour storage and grid-forming capability, in a low-noise design aimed at what the release calls one of the key site challenges, next to the operational Smareg 12. The release gives energy but no power rating; four hours from 442 MWh works out to about 110 MW by our arithmetic (the difference is in kW vs kWh).

Pacific Blue refers a Bendigo battery of up to 201 MW / 855 MWh

Pacific Hydro Australia Developments, part of Pacific Blue, has referred the Bendigo Battery Energy Storage System under Australia's EPBC Act, and the referral, EPBC 2026/10669, is open for public comment on the EPBC Act public portal, with comments due by November 23, 2026. It describes a battery with a "conceptual capacity of up to 201 megawatts (MW) / 855 megawatt hours (MWh)", a little over four hours at full power by our arithmetic, connected by an underground 220 kV cable to the adjacent AusNet Bendigo Terminal Station.

The site is old mining ground in a suburb called Golden Square, and Pacific Blue's case rests on that history: the referral calls it underutilised industrial land historically used for mining and industrial activities, says there will be no direct impacts to matters of national environmental significance, and puts native vegetation removal at 0.891 ha. Bendigo follows several other battery referrals, Energy-Storage.News reports, among them Samsung C&T Renewable Energy Australia's 200 MW / 800 MWh Darnum battery in Victoria's Gippsland region.