On July 2, Digital Journal reported the maverick entrepreneur claimed he would build the world’s largest lithium-ion battery within 100 days, making good on a Twitter promise to ease South Australia’s energy woes.
Aiding and betting
Billionaire Musk tweeted an offer to help build a battery farm in March after South Australia was hit with a total blackout when an “unprecedented” storm wrecked power transmission towers in 2016. Tesla won the bid in July and signed the contract for the grid connection deal on September 29. By then, Tesla was already halfway through installing the battery packs.
The 100-Megawatt battery will be able to power 30,000 homes and is connected to the Hornsdale wind farm run by French company Neoen. The wind farm is a 315MW renewable electricity project and consists of 99 wind turbines. Tesla’s battery will operate at all times providing stability services for renewable energy and will be available to provide emergency backup power if a shortfall in energy is predicted.
A brighter day for Australia
In a press release on November 23, Premier Jay Weatherill said he will join representatives from Neoen, Tesla, and Consolidated Power Projects next week to officially launch the battery, which has put South Australia and Jamestown on the map as a world leader in renewable energy with battery storage.
“Congratulations to the Tesla crew and South Australian authorities who worked so hard to get this manufactured and installed in record time!” Elon Musk wrote in a Wednesday tweet.
The state has yet to say how much they will pay for the battery. It is part of an A$510 million ($390 million) plan that also includes diesel-fired generators to help keep the lights on following a string of blackouts over the last year-and-a-half.
With Summer in Australia starting on December 1, energy operators in South Australia and neighboring Victoria are already anticipating the power supply will be tight because one of Australia’s biggest coal-fired power plants was shut down in March.
