Winning a bet, Tesla builds the worlds biggest battery for Australia

[Zorro]

Source: Marketwatch

South Australia will soon begin testing the world’s biggest lithium ion battery, the region’s government has declared.

And with that, Tesla Motor Inc.’s TSLA, -1.64% Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk just won a fairly sizable bet. Not only that, but the guy whose electric-car company has earned a bit of a reputation for delays actually managed to deliver a product on time.

The premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill, said in a statement Thursday that the Tesla Powerpack battery will soon start regulatory testing. It will connect to French renewable energy company Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm in South Australia, and hopefully put an end to the state’s serious energy problems. Neoen and Tesla were awarded the contract in July.

“The world’s largest lithium ion battery will be an important part of our energy mix, and it sends the clearest message that South Australia will be a leader renewable energy with battery storage,” said Weatherill.

Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/winning-a-bet-tesla-builds-the-worlds-biggest-battery-for-australia-2017-11-23

[Fred Sanders]

1. 100 megawatt battery, enough for approximately 30,000 homes.

http://mashable.com/2017/11/23/tesla-battery-powerpack-australia/#Qg5TUIMOFiqs

[hunter]

3. Journalists who use the phrase "enough for XXX homes..." ought to be banned from technology writing.

It's a meaningless phrase. A single car battery could power 30,000 homes for some fraction of a second.

Electricity is typically sold in kilowatt hours so that would be a good measure of this plant's storage capacity. A large lead-acid battery, the kind you might see in an RV, larger truck, or powering the electric trolling motor of a little fishing boat, holds about a kilowatt hour, which is 10-25 cents worth of electricity where I live.

What this giant Tesla battery pack does is stabilize the electric grid as the output of wind turbines fluctuates. The wind rarely blows at a constant speed. Existing electric grids powered by fossil fuels or hydroelectric power may not have been engineered to handle the fluctuating output of solar or wind turbines. This problem is typically solved by replacing plodding coal fired power plants with nimble natural gas power plants that can immediately pick up the load during brief lulls in the wind.

This Tesla battery farm is nowhere near large enough to power 30,000 homes on days the wind is not blowing.

[Fred Sanders]

4. I understand the kilowatt hour formula and you are right. The point is the

remarkable capacity of the battery, how quickly it can be deployed and the future potential for storage and use.

[Perseus]

2. I hope there is enough security around that project

You never know when special interests may want to disrupt.

[lagomorph777]

5. Soon to be replaced by Vanadium Redox Flow batteries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery

The flow battery has no solid electrodes; instead, the "electrodes" are a liquid solution stored in tanks and pumped through the battery. It should last several times longer than lithium batteries. It's also easily scalable.