Storage capacity of big Tesla battery in South Australia increased by 50 pct
CANBERRA, Sept. 2– The storage capacity of Tesla’s giant lithium-ion battery in South Australia has been boosted by 50 percent. French renewable company Neoen, which owns the battery, announced on Wednesday that the project to boost its capacity from 100 megawatts to 150 MW has been completed. The expansion was backed with a 50 million Australian dollars loan…
CANBERRA, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) — The storage capacity of Tesla’s giant lithium-ion battery in South Australia (SA) has been boosted by 50 percent.
French renewable company Neoen, which owns the battery, announced on Wednesday that the project to boost its capacity from 100 megawatts (MW) to 150MW has been completed.
The battery, called the Hornsdale Power Reserve, was built by electric vehicle giant Tesla in 2017 following repeated South Australian blackouts.
Its expansion was part of the SA government’s plan to have 100 percent of the state’s power come from renewable sources by 2030.
“The fact that it’s bigger is good,” Louis de Sambucy, Neoen Australia’s managing director, told News Corp Australia. “But for us, what’s even more important is the innovation this provides.”
“The battery can react faster than you can imagine. This is the grid of the future but it’s happening now and it’s happening here in SA.”
The expansion was backed with a 50 million Australian dollars (36.7 million U.S. dollars) loan from the federal government and 15 million Australian dollars (11 million U.S. dollars) from the state government.
“This is a cutting edge service which will help address our historic system security challenges and allow us to adopt more renewable energy,” SA Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan said.
Neoen in August revealed plans for a 3 billion Australian dollars wind and solar farm big enough to power 1 million homes.
The proposal includes plans for a new battery with a storage capacity of 900MW, six times more than the Hornsdale Power Reserve. Enditem
