The West Australian government says it has awarded contracts worth more than $1 billion with China battery maker CATL to supply batteries for two of the country’s biggest battery projects.

The contracts awarded to Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) are for the 200MW/800MWh second stage of the Kwinana big battery, which has already begun early works, and the 500MW/2000MWh Collie big battery, also being developed by Synergy.

The awarding of the contract to CATL should not be a big surprise given that it supplied the batteries to the first 100MW/200MWh stage of the Kwinana battery. But it still represents a major win for the company in the face of competition from Tesla, Fluence, Wartsilla and others.

The WA government said in a statement that the contracts would involve about 300 of CATL’s EnerC Plus, containerised liquid-cooling battery systems for the Kwinana project, and about 650 EnerC Plus systems for Collie.

Power Electronics will deliver 72 inverters for the Kwinana battery and 160 inverters for the Collie battery.

“These contracts, worth more than $1 billion, represent a major and important investment by our Government into WA’s cleaner, reliable and affordable energy future,”Premier Roger Cook said in a statement.

“Battery energy storage systems will play a key role in our decarbonisation plans, storing excess renewable energy generated in the day and discharging during times of high demand.

“We’re putting WA on the path to becoming a global green energy superpower, which is good for jobs, good for the environment, and will keep our economy strong into the future.”

The batteries will support more renewables by storing wind and solar energy generated during the day and delivering it back to the system during high-demand periods. I

t comes as the government recently released a new demand forecast for clean energy that would require more than 50GW of wind, solar and storage to meet the needs of green industries such as hydrogen and low emissions refining.