Image: Eku Energy
The Australian Capital Territory and Eku Energy said Thursday that the Big Canberra Battery at Williamsdale is online, a 250 megawatt / 500 megawatt-hour Tesla Megapack site built to cover about one-third of Canberra’s electricity needs for up to two hours at peak demand.
ACT officials called it the largest battery energy storage system in the Territory’s history. Eku Energy, which developed and will operate the project, said the Williamsdale BESS uses Tesla’s Megapack 2 XL batteries and can support the ACT network plus neighboring New South Wales.
According to the ACT release, the facility packs 136 Tesla Megapacks into 12 collector grids with their own step-up transformers, then ties into the grid through a main transformer the government said weighs more than 180 tonnes. Peak construction supported about 150 jobs.
Eku named Consolidated Power Projects as its balance-of-plant contractor, Evoenergy as the distribution network provider, and AEMO as the body that supported grid-connection approval. The site sits in Tuggeranong in the ACT’s south.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr cast the battery as future-proofing while Canberra electrifies homes, businesses, and vehicles. “The Big Canberra Battery is a major piece of that future-proofing. It will help keep our energy network reliable and resilient, make better use of renewable energy, and support Canberra as we continue to electrify our city,” he said.
Eku COO Tom Best said the project finished on time, on budget, and safely, with community-benefit funding already going to local groups and energy research at the Australian National University. The ACT put that package at $1 million.
Australia already hosts other large Tesla Megapack plants, including a 1.6 GWh Melbourne-area site that came online earlier this year and a $450 million BESS that went live in late 2025. Tesla has also talked about Megapack supply being sold out into 2027 while expanding Texas production.
Neither the ACT nor Eku detailed how Williamsdale will be dispatched day to day, what wholesale-market revenue it expects, or whether more Territory-scale Megapack sites are already under contract beyond the smaller neighborhood batteries already running in Dickson, Casey, and Fadden.
With Williamsdale live, Canberra now has a grid-scale Tesla battery sized for the city’s evening peaks. Will other Australian capitals chase a similar big battery next?
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