Contact Energy has started construction on the 100MW/200MWh Glenbrook grid-scale battery on North Island with an investment of up to NZ$163m (US$99m).
Contact has selected Tesla’s Megapack 2 XL batteries for the project, with a 20-year maintenance contract. The project is due for operations in Q1 2026 and Contact is project manager. Glenbrook is adjacent to NZ Steel, which has leased the three-hectare site to Contact for 30 years, and Transpower’s grid connection point and will be the closest grid-scale battery to Auckland. The battery will participate in the physical, reserve and frequency-keeping markets and support Contact’s retail offering backing wind and solar on an intra-day and intra-week basis. The contract with Tesla includes an option to increase the project to 130MW/260MWh. Contact said it intends to develop more battery projects and has consent for a 100MW battery at Stratford in Taranaki.
