Victoria’s State Electricity Commission (SEC) and Italian clean technology company Energy Dome have announced plans to develop the state’s first long-duration energy storage (LDES) facility.
The LDES project will feature a 20MW/200MWh compressed CO2 system capable of continuously supplying electricity for 10 to 12 hours, at a new energy innovation precinct in the Latrobe Valley.
The project will be housed at SEC Energy Works, a 143-hectare site at Hazelwood North that the SEC is establishing as a space to partner with industry on new energy infrastructure and storage technologies.
It will also be Australia’s first commercial deployment of closed-loop, compressed CO2 energy storage technology.
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Energy Dome’s branded CO2 Battery technology stores energy by using electricity to compress carbon dioxide gas into a liquid state during charging, then releasing the stored energy by expanding the CO2 through turbines when power is needed, in a closed-loop thermodynamic process.
Unlike lithium-ion battery systems that dominate Australia’s current storage fleet, the approach relies on conventional industrial components, such as compressors and turbines, familiar to the Latrobe Valley’s existing engineering workforce.
SEC CEO, Chris Miller, said long-duration energy storage will need to play a system-level role as Victoria advances toward its 65% renewable energy target by 2030.
“As an integrated generator and retailer of 100% renewable electricity to commercial and industrial customers, we envisage long-duration energy storage will play a critical role in balancing our portfolio, enabling SEC to provide additional support to the system during multi-hour or multi-day wind or solar droughts,” Miller said.
Energy Dome founder and CEO Claudio Spadacini said the Latrobe Valley’s workforce made it a natural fit for the technology.
“Our CO2 battery delivers 10 to 12 hours of clean, dispatchable power, using proven compressor and turbine technology familiar to the Latrobe Valley workforce. This project will help support the region’s transition from coal while maintaining the engineering skills that have powered Victoria for generations,” Spadacini said.
Planning and design for the project have begun, with early stakeholder and community consultation now underway.
ESN Premium recently sat down with Energy Dome board member and COO of its energy storage-as-a-service division, Ben Potter, for an exclusive interview, which will be published next week.
Victoria’s storage fleet and the LDES gap
Victoria has seen rapid growth in short-duration battery storage in recent years. The 600MW/1.6GWh Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub was brought online at Plumpton in December 2025, jointly developed by Singapore-based Equis Australia and the SEC, and configured across three separate battery systems with two and four-hour storage durations.
The project, valued at AU$1.1 billion (US$770 million), forms part of the SEC’s broader program targeting 4.5GW of new renewable energy and storage capacity across the state.
That pattern of 2-4-hour deployments reflects the broader Australian market, where battery storage has expanded rapidly but has concentrated on shorter durations suited to smoothing morning and evening demand peaks.
Long-duration storage, generally defined as 8-hours or more, addresses a different problem: extended periods of low wind or solar output that shorter systems cannot cover.
Readers of Energy-Storage.news might be aware that Energy Dome ranked as the highest-placed non-lithium company in a new LDES supplier leaderboard published by research and consultancy firm Sightline Climate in January 2026, placed third overall behind Tesla and Chint Power.
Sightline cited Energy Dome’s two commercial projects past final investment decision, higher round-trip efficiency than other mechanical storage technologies, and competitive capital costs as the factors setting it apart from other non-lithium providers.
The company’s first commercial project, a 20MW/200MWh system in Sardinia, Italy, has been in operation for about a year with utility Engie as its offtaker. Energy Dome has since been expanding its commercial pipeline across multiple markets.
For instance, in June 2026, it signed its second supply contract with Google for a 23MW/200MWh project in County Offaly, Ireland, to be built, owned and operated by Energy Dome under a tolling agreement, with the project also holding a 10-year capacity market contract from the Irish grid operator. That contract was won in competition with thermal generation, hydro and battery storage.
Meanwhile, in Arizona, Energy Dome is also advancing a 19MW/190MWh project with utility Salt River Project and Google, under a 20-year tolling agreement, co-located at a former coal-fired power station site. The Arizona project is expected to come online in 2029.
Energy Dome’s Ben Potter told Energy-Storage.news that the Google projects are expected to be the first of many in a multi-gigawatt-hour global rollout, following the tech giant’s mid-2025 strategic investment in the startup that established their commercial partnership.
Our publisher, Solar Media (part of Informa Group), will host the Battery Asset Management Summit Australia 2026 on 25-26 August at Amora Hotel Jamison in Sydney. You can find out more about the Summit on the official website.
Facts Only
* Victoria’s State Electricity Commission (SEC) and Energy Dome announced plans for an LDES facility.
* The project will feature a 20MW/200MWh compressed $\text{CO}2$ system.
* The system can continuously supply electricity for 10 to 12 hours.
* The location is in the Latrobe Valley, at SEC Energy Works on a 143-hectare site at Hazelwood North.
* The project will be Australia’s first commercial deployment of closed-loop, compressed $\text{CO}2$ energy storage technology.
* Energy Dome's CO2 Battery stores energy by compressing carbon dioxide into a liquid state during charging and releasing it via turbines when power is needed in a closed-loop thermodynamic process.
* SEC CEO Chris Miller stated long-duration storage will be critical for balancing the portfolio during multi-hour or multi-day wind or solar droughts.
* The technology relies on conventional components like compressors and turbines.
* Victoria has a short-duration battery storage deployment, the 600MW/1.6GWh Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub, operational in December 2025.
* Energy Dome's CO2 Battery ranks as the highest-placed non-lithium company in Sightline Climate’s LDES supplier leaderboard (January 2026).
* Energy Dome has signed supply contracts with Google for projects in Ireland and an Arizona project with Salt River Project.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative frames a transition away from incumbent energy storage solutions, positioning novel mechanical storage as a means to support ambitious renewable targets. The core tension lies between the established market for short-duration battery technology, which dominates current deployments, and the recognized systemic need for long-duration storage (8+ hours) to manage intermittency during extended weather events. Energy Dome’s strategy leverages localized industrial expertise by employing proven compressor and turbine technology, which creates a bridge to existing regional infrastructure rather than demanding a wholesale technological overhaul. The pattern suggests an effort to embed new infrastructure into existing socio-economic structures—the Latrobe Valley workforce—to increase adoption velocity. However, the success of this shift depends on whether these novel solutions can compete effectively against established lithium-ion systems in terms of capital costs and system efficiency at scale, especially as projects move from pilot deployments to multi-gigawatt-hour rollouts. The movement toward CO2 storage is contextualized by competitive positioning against other non-lithium technologies, suggesting a market where mechanical energy systems are being re-evaluated not just for technical performance but also for regional employment continuity and integration with existing industrial capacity.
Patterns detected: ARC-0043 Motte-and-Bailey (repositioning LDES as the necessary evolution)
Patterns detected: ARC-0024 Ambiguity (the relative competitive standing of mechanical vs. battery storage in terms of future cost/deployment scale)
Patterns detected: ARC-0071 Authority Game (leveraging regional workforce familiarity to ease technology adoption)
Implications: The focus on integrating proven industrial components suggests a systemic challenge: how to accelerate the deployment of energy infrastructure without creating new, specialized skill silos that are inaccessible to existing industrial workforces. The reliance on external partnerships for global rollout implies that localized success must be translated into scalable, globally competitive engineering solutions, requiring deep scrutiny into the real-world performance metrics against established incumbents.
Bridge Questions: If mechanical storage offers superior dispatchability over long durations, what barriers exist beyond initial capital investment preventing its mass adoption in grid planning? How does the reliance on existing industrial skills impact the timeline for workforce retraining versus technological deployment goals? What is the ultimate systemic cost—measured in resilience and transition speed—of prioritizing locally familiar technology over pure material-based solutions?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like well-researched journalistic synthesis, connecting specific regional energy projects with broader industry trends and competitive positioning in long-duration storage technology.