Tesla Joins Effort to Pair Batteries With Offshore Wind

[jpak]

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/tesla-batteries-offshore-wind-21665

If approved by the state, the wind farm would begin operating in 2023. It is expected to be built next to another wind farm proposed by Deepwater Wind called the South Fork Wind Project. That project would serve Long Island, N.Y.

The companies proposed Revolution Wind as part of a call in Massachusetts for new sources of renewable energy across the state. The state hopes to generate more clean energy to meet its climate goals by cutting the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Electric power plants running on coal and natural gas have historically been America’s largest source of carbon pollution contributing to climate change.

Revolution Wind brings together two new industries in the U.S. — offshore wind and electricity storage. The expansion and scalability of renewables depends in part on new ways to store wind and solar power, which today can only be used when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. Big batteries are seen as a solution to that problem because they allow renewable energy to be used whenever it’s needed.

So far, batteries are most often used to store solar power. Tesla has teamed up with electric companies in California to build batteries to help them use more solar, but it has not used the batteries for offshore wind power anywhere in the U.S.

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[Kaleva]

1. The Great Lakes have great wind power potential

Theoretically, the lakes could provide power for the entie upper Midwest .