The Diplomat
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, inaugurated yesterday in Canberra, capital of Australia, the first Queanbeyan battery energy storage system built by the Naturgy Group in the oceanic country.
“This new investment by the Naturgy Group in Australia shows the potential that Spanish companies have worldwide and their capacity to develop projects that are pioneering in sectors such as energy and renewable energies, where Spain has internationally leading companies,” said Maroto, who began an official visit to Australia yesterday.
“In addition to Naturgy, there are many Spanish companies with a presence in the Australian market that are benchmarks in other areas such as infrastructure or the shipbuilding industry,” she continued. “With this visit I want to support Spanish companies with a presence in Australia such as Naturgy and promote new investments in this important market,” she added.
The Queanbeyan battery center (Battery Energy Storage Systems, BESS) is the first storage facility that Naturgy will put into operation worldwide. It is located in the Australian capital region, next to the city of Canberra, and will have a strategic role in supporting the distribution network in the area, as it will have the capacity to accumulate electricity from renewable sources and feed it into the grid when required at times of lower electricity production. The project is associated with the construction of the Berrybank 2 wind farm, which the group will begin operating in the coming months.
The inauguration and visit to the plant was attended by the Spanish Ambassador to Australia, Alicia Moral Revilla; the Director General of International Trade and Investment, Alicia Rocío Varela; the Economic and Commercial Counselor, Ana Raquel García Rubio; the Director General of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, Inmaculada Riera i Reñé; the CEO of Global Power Generation (GPG, Naturgy’s international generation subsidiary), Francisco Bustío; and the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability of the Australian Capital Territory Government (ACT), Shane Rattenbury.
Maroto’s visit to Australia began at noon (early Wednesday morning in Spain) in Canberra with a meeting with the Minister of Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell, with whom she agreed on the need both to strengthen trade relations and bilateral investment and the signing of a free trade agreement between the EU and Australia, as reported by the Ministry through its official Twitter account.
Later, the minister met with the representatives and senators of the Spain-Australia Friendship Group, with the president of the Association of Spanish Researchers in Australia, Ángel López-Sánchez, and with the ambassador of the European Union in Australia at the Residence of the Spanish Embassy in Canberra. Maroto also visited the tramway construction project that the Spanish corporations CAF and ACS are carrying out in the capital, met with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of the Government of Australia, Richard Marles, participated in the aforementioned inauguration of the Queanbeyan battery center facilities and held a meeting with Spanish businessmen at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney.
