IN Brief:
- Bellambi Heights is a 408MW battery with approximately 816MWh of storage connected around the existing 330kV transmission corridor.
- OptiGrid has been selected to provide trading optimisation for the project across Australia's National Electricity Market.
- A long-term revenue-share agreement already covers a 204MW portion, adding contracted commercial obligations to the battery's optimisation problem.
OptiGrid has been selected to provide trading optimisation for Vena Energy’s Bellambi Heights battery in New South Wales, adding an automated market-bidding layer to a 408MW/approximately 816MWh storage project now under construction.
The battery is being built at Beryl, around 6.5km north-west of Gulgong, within the Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone. Vena Energy describes the project as a 408MW BESS providing approximately two hours of storage, while current construction documentation specifies storage capacity of approximately 816MWh.
OptiGrid announced the optimisation appointment on 7 September. Its platform is designed for battery participation in Australia’s National Electricity Market, combining price forecasting, portfolio optimisation, bidding, and monitoring for stand-alone and hybrid storage assets.
The commercial task is to decide when battery capacity should be charged, discharged, reserved, or offered into competing markets. Wholesale electricity trading provides one source of revenue, while frequency-control services can reward rapid changes in power. Each opportunity has to be considered against the energy and power that remain available after earlier dispatch.
That makes battery optimisation a physical problem as well as a financial one. A discharge reduces state of charge immediately, while recharging requires both time and an acceptable electricity price. Round-trip losses reduce the energy eventually returned to the grid, and repeated cycling contributes to degradation that affects lifetime asset value.
Bellambi Heights also operates within contractual constraints. In March, Vena Group signed an approximately A$200 million long-term Revenue Share Agreement with InCommodities covering a 204MW portion of the project. Vena says the agreement provides revenue certainty while construction progresses towards initial energisation in late 2026 and full commercial operation by mid-2027.
An optimiser therefore cannot treat the entire 408MW asset as unrestricted merchant capacity. Contracted commitments, available state of charge, operating limits, market prices, degradation assumptions, and ancillary-service obligations have to be represented together so that a profitable short-term dispatch does not breach a longer-term commercial position.
The physical project is sizeable. Vena’s current construction plan specifies a battery compound containing enclosures, power-conversion equipment, ancillary infrastructure, operation and maintenance facilities, and associated storage equipment. The electrical connection includes two 330/33kV transformer bays, high-voltage switchgear, current and voltage transformers, control facilities, and a switching yard.
The site is adjacent to the existing Wollar to Wellington 330kV transmission line. Vena selected the location partly because the high-voltage network already traverses the property, reducing the amount of completely new transmission infrastructure required to connect a large storage asset to the National Electricity Market.
Planning changes approved in October 2025 further refined that connection. The substation and switching-yard arrangement was optimised, works were consolidated within the Transgrid 330kV easement, and transmission-tower changes were incorporated into the development footprint. Construction began during the first quarter of 2026.
The connection matters to trading performance because a battery can only act on an optimisation signal if its network position allows the requested power flow. Congestion, outages, connection limits, and local system conditions can all constrain dispatch even when wholesale prices make charging or discharging commercially attractive.
Software also depends on accurate plant information. Battery-management systems must report state of charge and operating limits correctly, power-conversion systems must follow dispatch commands, and telemetry connecting the plant with trading and control platforms has to remain available. An optimisation algorithm operating on stale or incorrect data can create an economically rational instruction that the physical asset cannot execute.
Australia’s five-minute dispatch intervals increase the volume of decisions. Price conditions can change rapidly, while frequency-control markets introduce additional opportunities and obligations. Automated bidding can evaluate a larger set of combinations than a manual trader could continuously process, although risk limits and commercial strategy still require human governance.
Bellambi Heights is intended to support firming and frequency control as renewable generation expands across New South Wales. Vena’s project material notes that the Central-West Orana region is carrying substantial renewable development, creating a growing requirement for storage that can absorb electricity in periods of surplus and return it when the system is tighter.
A two-hour battery does not remove transmission congestion or provide unlimited firm generation. Its available energy is finite, and charging still depends on spare network capacity and sufficient supply. Its value lies in changing the timing of power flows within those limits and responding much faster than most conventional generation can change output.
The OptiGrid appointment brings the trading layer into the project before commercial operation rather than adding it after commissioning. That allows telemetry requirements, operating envelopes, contractual positions, and market interfaces to be incorporated while the physical plant is still being completed.
When Bellambi Heights enters service, optimisation performance will depend on both sides of that interface. Forecasting and bidding determine what the battery is asked to do; transformers, switchgear, converters, controls, communications, and cells determine whether it can do it. For an 816MWh asset exposed to several electricity markets, neither part can be treated as secondary.
