Elon Musk’s Tesla to build world’s largest battery in Australia
South Australia has picked Tesla to install the world’s largest grid-scale battery, which would be paired with a wind farm provided by France’s Neoen, in a major test of the reliability of large-scale renewable energy use.
Tesla Inc. has announced that it would build the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world in Australia. In a statement, the company said “this system will be the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world and will provide enough power for more than 30,000 homes, approximately equal to the amount of homes that lost power during the blackout period.”
Tesla boss Elon Musk also shared the news on Twitter:
This will be the highest power battery system in the world by a factor of 3. Australia rocks!! https://t.co/c1DD7xtC90
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2017
The 100-megawatt (129 megawatt hour) battery should be ready this year. “There is certainly some risk, because this will be largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin,” Mr Musk said in Adelaide on Friday.
He added that “the next biggest battery in the world is 30 megawatts”.
South Australia, the fifth-biggest state with a population of 1.7 million, has raced ahead of the rest of the country in turning to wind power. Its shutdown of coal-fired plants has led to outages across the eastern part of the nation, driving up energy prices. The region was hit by statewide blackouts last year after a storm damaged its power grid, and in March Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk announced a plan to use renewable energy and storage to help solve Australia’s energy problems.
Working in close collaboration with the South Australian Government and Neoen, this grid scale energy storage project is not only sustainable, but will help solve power shortages, reduce intermittencies, and manage summertime peak load to improve the reliability of South Australia’s electrical infrastructure.
