8 September 2026 – Australian advanced materials company, Lava Blue, is pleased to announce that its processing facility in Brisbane’s south east has become the site of Australia’s first grid-connected sodium-sulfur (NAS®) battery, demonstrating long-duration energy storage technology under real industrial operating conditions.
The 250kW / 1.45MWh NAS® battery, manufactured by Japan’s NGK, has been commissioned at Lava Blue’s Centre for Predictive Research into Specialty Materials (PRiSM) and connected to Energex’s local distribution network and the National Electricity Market.
Integrated with 200kW of existing solar generation at PRiSM, the system can supply up to 100% of the facility’s peak operating load, including energy-intensive advanced materials processing equipment.
The project was developed through the Queensland Energy Storage Technology (QUEST) Hub, a QUT and Queensland Government-funded initiative focused on accelerating the development and commercialisation of battery materials, chemistries and systems.
Lava Blue, a founding industry partner in the QUEST Hub, was selected to host the deployment because PRiSM provides a real light-industrial operating environment in which the battery can be tested against variable processing loads, solar generation and grid requirements.
Lava Blue Managing Director Michael McCann said the installation built on PRiSM’s role as a facility for demonstrating technologies under conditions closer to industrial reality.
“PRiSM was established to bridge the gap between laboratory research and industrial-scale materials processing, so it is an ideal environment in which to demonstrate a long-duration battery technology under genuine operating conditions,” Mr McCann said.
“Our advanced materials processes include high-temperature and other energy-intensive operations. Integrating solar generation with long-duration storage gives us the ability to supply those loads with renewable energy for extended periods and better understand how advanced manufacturing can operate alongside future energy systems.
“It also complements the work already taking place at PRiSM to develop and demonstrate alternative mineral-processing routes for critical and high-purity materials.”
Lava Blue has developed hydrochloric-acid-based mineral processing approaches aimed at recovering high-purity materials from a range of mineral resources and feedstocks.
The company’s work reflects a broader focus on designing processing technologies for the future operating environment of critical minerals projects, including considerations such as reagent supply security, resource recovery, process efficiency and the stringent purity requirements of advanced materials.
Mr McCann said combining that processing capability with renewable generation and long-duration storage demonstrated the broader value of PRiSM as an industrial commercialisation platform.
“The transition to renewable energy is also a materials transition. It requires both new energy technologies and new ways of producing the high-purity materials those technologies depend on,” he said.
“This project brings those two sides of the challenge together at one site.”
QUEST Hub Director Associate Professor Joshua Watts, from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics, led the project for QUT, including oversight of critical components of the battery management system required for grid integration.
“The successful commissioning of Australia’s first grid-connected NAS® battery energy storage system marks an important milestone for Queensland’s battery industry and Australia’s energy transition,” Associate Professor Watts said.
“The project has brought together researchers, industry and government to demonstrate an alternative long-duration energy storage technology under real industrial operating conditions.
“It has also enabled the QUEST Hub to support the commercial translation of Queensland-developed power conversion technology and demonstrate how long-duration storage can be integrated with renewable generation to reduce the energy costs associated with the refining of high-purity materials.”
Melbourne-based Allset Energy provided the electrical engineering, installation and system integration for the project, including development of the interface between the NAS® battery, PRiSM’s solar generation, the facility and the grid.
The purpose-built power management system that provides the interface between the battery, the grid and the solar power plant incorporates more than 80% Australian content, including DC converters developed and manufactured in Queensland by Advanced Converter Solutions to enable voltage adaptation and integration with the wider system.
NAS® batteries are designed for long-duration energy storage and can provide six or more hours of energy discharge at full rated capacity, making the technology suited to applications including renewable energy firming, peak demand management and grid stability.
The technology has more than 20 years of commercial operating experience internationally, with approximately 5GWh deployed across more than 250 applications.
Australia’s first NAS® battery system was deployed by Allset Energy for QUT at a remote Western Australian mining site in 2023 in a microgrid environment. The system has since provided in-field data on the technology’s performance under Australian conditions.
The PRiSM installation extends that work into a grid-connected industrial setting, providing further operating experience to inform potential future deployment of NAS® technology in Australia.
For more information about Lava Blue and its technology platform, please visit www.lavablue.com or contact [email protected].
