A 100MW Tesla battery system, which Elon Musk promised to install in less than 100 days, has come online in South Australia ahead of schedule.
Billed as the largest lithium-ion storage project in the world, the facility uses a scaled-up version of Tesla’s Powerpack technology. The giant battery is paired with French energy provider Neoen’s nearby Hornsdale Wind Farm and will help balance the South Australian grid, as well as provide about 60 minutes of emergency power for 30,000 homes in the event of a blackout.
When the project was announced earlier in the year, Musk said Tesla would deliver it for free if it wasn’t ready within 100 days. The installation was completed just 63 days after the agreement was signed. According to South Australia’s Premier Jay Weatherill, the launch marked an important day in the state’s transition to renewable energy.
“This is history in the making,” he said. “South Australia is now leading the world in dispatchable renewable energy, delivered to homes and businesses 24/7.”
“Neoen and Tesla approached the State Government with their bold plan to deliver this project, and they have met all of their commitments, ensuring South Australia has back up power this summer.”
Recent years have seen storms and heat waves leaving residents in the region without power on numerous occasions, prompting action from the government. After a tendering process that called for grid-scale solutions, Tesla was awarded the entire storage component of the project.
“The completion of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in record time shows that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible,” Tesla said in a statement.
“We are proud to be part of South Australia’s renewable energy future, and hope this project provides a model for future deployments around the world. The South Australian Government should be congratulated for ensuring their energy supply is not only sustainable, but will help solve power shortages, reduce variability, and manage summertime peak load.”
Great news – but battery capacity is not measured in Megawatts. I suppose it should be MWh. Although the BBC got it wrong, I would have thought The Engineer would have noticed.
Output is 100MW. Capacity is 129MWh.
Thank you Andrew. Surely capacity is more the point here as regards size.
How about joules, rather than ampere hours or megawatts.
Can’t we get him to negotiate the UK Brexit terms?
Not even a nod to costs… Any offers for a global cost including connection, housing and regeneration back to the grid?
Storage voltage? UK commercial feasibility??
I wonder how long it takes to charge?
If there was a major power outage it sounds like the battery would discharge in less than 1 1/2 hours. Would you then have to leave it plugged in by your bed overnight before it was ready to go again?
vairry interesting…..keen to hear/see how it all works out in use and long-term costs. Wonder if it was built at near cost-price as a sales example world wide
Good business model, Tesla get paid twice, once for the cars then again to use up old car power pack.
The former article (linked above) said it was 129MWh capacity. That is just over 4kWh for each of the 30,000 homes! Hardly stunning! However, I guess it is a start and battery technology will develop apace over the next few years with larger capacities and lower costs. It is always better to be a Fast Follower than a First Implementer.
Robert, with the greatest of due respect to yourself and countless other people who would have us believe that the “next big thing” in battery technology is just around the corner; please bear in mind that the first electric battery, (as we know it), was invented in 1799 ! …that’s right, you read correctly, 218 years ago. The simple truth is that you cannot “put the electrons” back in the battery as quickly as you withdrew them. Until someone finds a way to overcome the laws of physics, this problem will persist. Having a vehicle that will take you as much time to re-charge, as it did to drive the 300 kilometres you just travelled, is not necessarily seen as a “great leap forward”. Coupled with the fact that generation capacity must be available 24/7 to maintain power to the charging stations, we still have a long “row to hoe”.
I’m neither a “denier” nor a “defeatist”… I’m simply a realist with a bit of scientific knowledge. The other elephant in the room is the “sweet young things”, ( and many not-so-young), who are surrounded with a slew of electronic devices…. all of which need charging stations. It would be interesting to see just how much power is drawn by the many many millions of chargers on a daily basis. (and more importantly, how much power could be saved with a lot less use of these “apparently” indispensible items).
I would love one of those the size of a car battery to pop in my quad bike.
Probably the only answer in that area of Australia, but I still think Hydro storage is the way to go in the UK.
John,
There are a number of solar/storage projects in train for South Australia including pumped hydro,
see:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/explainer-big-3-projects-making-south-australia-capital-battery-storage-42799/
We even have a solar powered tomato farm not far from that Tesla battery!
http://www.sundropfarms.com/
Richard
I wonder what the environmental cost of all this is – I suspect that it is far less clean than its proponents would be prepared to admit.
As regards future battery technology, a successor to lithium ion batteries will be needed pretty quickly. If we persist with this headlong rush towards large scale battery storage systems, not to mention battery electric cars, we can probably expect to run out of lithium in less than 20 years.
Anyway a step in right direction which augurs well for future of renewable energy and the world.
Good going Tesla.
It was good news for South Australia to have the battery storage, but two things have been identified, firstly the battery is connected to the grid which is controlled by the Australian Energy market operator, and some or all of the electricity from the battery storage was sent to Victoria, not South Australia. It is going to be interesting to see in a major electricity shortage which results in a blackout, who will receive the electricity from the batteries, South Australia or Victoria. The second most important issue is Base load electricity can only be the electricity generated and stored on site, as in the above case blackouts caused by lighting damage to power lines and other infrastructure, even those close to the batteries had no power, to charge their phones, run there fridges and freezers and keep things running like normal people would expect. The batteries are only apart of the solution, and much more needs to be done on micro wind turbines and power transmitted through the air, Nikola Tesla’s dream, but left no records.
Whilst the technical side is non trivial, the real triumph is that Elon Musk has once again led and delivered.
Anyone with experience in State Government projects will appreciate that Tesla have delivered, not missed. This is a beach-head for Tesla, which means that it was a miss for others. The equation is not ‘engineering’ nor an arithmetic exercise of Watts and hours, it is market opportunity and customer buy-in.
I think batteries are horrible things: toxic, full of rare elements, limited in life/charge cycle and virtually impossible to recycle – I suspect cooling will also be an issue in the heat of the Outback. I have developed a low RPM/high momentum flywheel-based system which could do the job in the same space more efficiently using simple and well-known technology which could last for hundreds of years and is totally ‘Green’ – I’d be happy to share the details with anyone who’s interested.
Is it 100 MW-hr, 100 MW-min, or 100 MW-s. In any case, I would like to observe – from a cleverly safe distance, of course.
Bryan William Leyland As as far as I can make out, the cost could be in excess of $100 million – probably more when the associated infrastructure is also included. This works out at $775/kWh stored. Based on a 10% return (not unreasonable considering that I suspect it will require regular supervision and maintenance – the fire risk is enormous) and the life may not be much longer than 10 years, the cost to be recovered every year is about $77/kWh. If it does the equivalent of 200 full cycles per year, it works out to about $0.40/kWh recovered. Plus, of course, at least $0.15 cents/kWh to cover the cost of the wind power fed into it and the internal losses.
For $0.50/kWh I would happily provide a 100 MW diesel power station that would provide much more than 129 MWh at a go. For much less than that, I could keep the existing coal-fired stations running or build a modern efficient and clean new one.
The whole thing is raving nonsense.
Where you gunna buy your oxygen?
1. Re fire risk so is the fire risk from 30,000 litres of diesel
2. Because it has fast response it will probably do many shallow cycles providing regulation and two deeper cycles per day supplying morning and evening peaks so it can easily provide the equivalent of 500 cycles per year so that more than halves you price
3. Power price is occasionally negative in SA and at other times wind is curtailed so the charging cost may well be less than your estimate
4. A 100 MW battery provides the equivalent of 1,000MW of primary reserve from gas turbines so there will be fewer gas turbines operating at part load “just in case” in the short term reducing network fuel costs and in the longer term network investment