White elephant? Hardly – Snowy 2.0 will last 150 years and work with batteries to push out gas

When Snowy 2.0 is in the news, it’s usually about money. The cost of the huge project has gone well beyond the initial A$6 billion estimate and will now cost more than $12 billion.

But cost overruns don’t affect the real value of this pumped hydro project. When it comes online – likely in 2028 – Snowy 2.0 will bring something fundamentally new to the Australian electricity system: energy storage at a scale far beyond anything else.