Biggest battery to plug city’s energy gap
The world’s biggest battery, touted as the answer to one of the world’s most pressing power problems, is undergoing final tests in the dusty hamlet of Jamestown, South Australia.
The array of hundreds of sleek, silver units will act as an emergency back-up for the state’s power system and help it to cope with electricity demand during peak periods, such as heatwaves, allowing South Australia’s burgeoning renewable output to be stored and released when it is most needed.
The battery array was built after a high-stakes bet by Elon Musk, 46, the US technology billionaire behind Tesla electric cars, that he could meet a 100-day building deadline or he would give the system away.
The regional grid suffered a failure last year when a storm tore through transmission towers and power lines leaving almost the entire state, about four times the size of the UK, without electricity. The new battery is the most powerful ever built and could sustain much of Adelaide’s population of 1.3 million for about an hour and 17 minutes if the electricity system were hit by another crisis, allowing time for repairs.
Mr Musk, a South African born engineer and inventor who made his initial fortune with Paypal, promised Australians that he would give the new battery, which cost nearly £30 million, to them if his company failed to have it up and running within the deadline. He made the promise after being challenged by Mike CannonBrookes, an Australian software billionaire and advocate of renewable energy technology.
Mr Musk replied on Twitter: ‘‘Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free.’’ Engineers began powering up the new battery array, three times larger than any other lithium ion battery, this weekend and testing will continue this week before the December 1 commissioning deadline.
The battery will be charged from a nearby wind farm of 99 turbines owned by the French energy company Neoen.
The battery, to be jointly paid for by South Australian taxpayers, Tesla and Neoen, will run continuously to provide security to the state’s power system when shortages occur in the peak of summer as well as covering for emergencies.
Air conditioning systems are a growing drain on Australia’s electricity grid amid a warming climate. A larger problem, however, is the move away from ‘‘always on’’ coal-fired power stations to solar and less reliable wind generation.
Energy forecasters are warning Australians that predictions of an extreme summer could mean more electricity shortages, likely to provide an early test for the battery.