The Oven Mountain Pumped Hydro project is located on private land within the New England Renewable Energy Zone, adjacent to the Macleay River between Armidale and Kempsey.
It will bring much-needed, long-duration storage and reliability to the National Electricity Market, generating up to 900 MW of electricity and storing enough water for up to eight hours of dispatchable energy at full generation for 100+ years. At 900 MW for 8 hours, the project would generate up to 7.2 GWh which is enough to power over 600,000 homes.
Pumping and releasing water between two reservoirs on private land (away from the Macleay River) means there’s no need to dam the Macleay River for the project, and it won’t have a net impact on local water use.
It will also result in many market and environmental benefits, including an annual reduction of approximately 400,000 tonnes of CO2-e in generation emissions.
It will take approximately five years to construct and we’re aiming for it to commence operating in the early 2030s.
