en.Wedoany.com Reported - South Australian energy storage developer Lunio Energy's first battery energy storage project, the Strathalbyn BESS, has been energized and connected to the National Electricity Market (NEM) for real-time trading.

Located in South Australia, the Strathalbyn BESS has a capacity of 5MW/20MWh and is now connected to the grid, enabling it to store energy when electricity is abundant and cheap, and discharge when the grid needs it, responding to market signals. This project is the first asset in a series of energy storage projects Lunio is developing in South Australia.

Seth Thuraisingham, Founder and CEO of Lunio Energy, stated that the team built the battery with the goal of earning its place in a grid powered predominantly by renewable energy for most of the year, and the battery is currently fulfilling this role in the market every day. He noted that South Australia leads the nation in renewable energy generation, but emission reduction efforts are far from complete. Energy storage facilities play a supporting role by filling supply gaps, making renewable energy reliable around the clock, and maintaining grid stability as more wind and solar power are integrated.

The Strathalbyn BESS utilizes OptiGrid's OptiBidder platform to optimize energy trading and market bidding. Through OptiBidder, the battery can optimize charging and discharging decisions, submit bids in the contingency Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) market, and capture value from price volatility and system demand. Thuraisingham stated that OptiGrid was chosen because OptiBidder demonstrated strong capture rate performance in evaluations, and its team's deep insights into the NEM and battery operations in South Australia also strengthened investment confidence. Since the battery's commissioning, OptiBidder has become the engine converting market volatility into asset revenue.