The world’s largest battery is about to get even bigger

Tesla likes big batts and they cannot lie, and while I go and sit in the corner and think about what I just wrote, here’s some related news for you.

The world’s largest grid-scale lithium ion battery is about to get 50 percent bigger, with the expansion of the Hornsdale Power Reserve site in South Australia.

Tesla completed installing the battery, a Powerpack system with 100 megawatts of capacity, in South Australia in Nov. 2017. Connected to Neoen’s Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown, three hours’ drive from Adelaide, the Powerpack system was meant to alleviate some of the state’s severe energy issues. 

On Tuesday, the Australian Federal Government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) announced they’re going to drop a cheeky $50 million in project finance on the battery site — makes sense, as the company claims that the battery saved consumers more than $50 million in its first year of operation (although this report reckons it’s more like $40 million).

With this hefty new budget, French renewable energy developer Neoen, which runs the Hornsdale Wind Farm, will increase the battery’s output from 100 to 150 megawatts — a casually large increase of 50 percent by mid-2020.

In addition to the CEFC’s contribution, the state’s government has thrown in $15 million to secure the delivery of inertia measurement services, which help keep the grid stable, and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency will also contribute $8 million.

“We see grid-scale batteries as a critical part of the next wave of investment that will support the rapid and unprecedented change we are seeing across Australia’s electricity system,” said CEFC CEO Ian Learmonth in a press statement.

“The Hornsdale Power Reserve has already delivered substantial benefits to South Australia, providing grid reliability, reducing energy costs and integrating the State’s substantial renewable energy resources into the grid. It is an exciting model that can be extended across the grid to improve security.”

While this Powerpack-fuelled project is now being pretty much steered by the Australian state and federal government, Tesla’s ambitions in the big battery business are moving elsewhere, with the announcement of a colossal, utility-scale, 250-megawatt Megapack battery project in July. 

Powerful stuff.