A new company is turning an old power station into a battery and industrial zone. 

The Wallerawang generator near Lithgow in central-western NSW has been defunct since 2014, but the site has now been taken over. 

Greenspot - a company established last year to rescue stranded assets from the fossil fuel industry - has plans to decommission the plant and turn it into a multi-purpose industrial area and renewable energy battery. 

The power station itself covers 90 hectares, and will be modified ro retain the old turbine hall and cooling tower, while two of three chimneys will be knocked down. The oldest and shortest of the chimneys was part of the original coal generator built in the 1950s, and will be retained.

The entire site is more than 450 hectares, including large pine plantations, a substation and Lake Wallace.

Greenspot says it is looking at developing the entire site into a multi-purpose area for industry, agriculture and recreation.

But the first goal will be to build a large-scale battery. The Wallerawang 9 Battery Project is set to have a capacity of 500 megawatts and offer 1,000 megawatt hours of storage. 

In theory, it could discharge renewable energy at full capacity for several hours before it must be recharged.

The company says the battery will cost less than $500 million and could be ready as soon as 2023.

French company Neoen is looking at building a similar sized battery nearby. 

The clean-up and decommissioning of the site will cost tens of millions of dollars and take around 18 months. The site is contaminated with oil, asbestos and coal dust.

Contractors from Liberty Industrial have been brought in to run the works, after having worked on several old power stations in the past.