Everyone living in Australia will have heard of big energy shortage South Australia had a few months back. AS the state went more green (windmills and solar) there were days when almost no energy was being produced by wind which the state depended on; this produced power cuts. Last week I did an article on batteries which relates to this showing why they are important (https://steemit.com/teamaustralia/@irfo1/lithium-ion-batteries-and-tesla-s-elon-musk)
Right after that Elon Musk said in the press he'd be happy to work with Australia and deliver a battery that will store excess power when wind and solar are producing.
Today we finally got news of how they've agreed to build a 129MWh battery which will be the biggest in the world (actually 60% bigger then the next biggest one). The one below is currently the biggest one in California also built by Tesla.
On news in Australia today this is huge and that 129MWh sounds like a lot; it isnt. This battery could only keep 4000 homes with power for 1 day if there was a blackout. The state has ~1.68 million people. It certainly is a start but it doesnt solve the state's problems.
Whats interesting about the deal is that Elon Musk promised the battery will be installed within a 100 days or its free.
Tesla and Neoen (a french company) are involved in providing this deal to South Australia.
Source image: https://www.gizmodo.com.au
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Interesting story. I don't think that batteries are the future but I hope it helps
For storing energy for homes me neither. For cars, handheld electronics and other gadgets it will be I reckon. Thank you for visiting.
I think we definitely need them if we want solar to be a thing, if you can store it during the dar effectively especially in Australia, you have no issues at night, otherwise I dont really see too much of a point to solar tbh, you dont use anywhere near as much heating/lighting/appliances during the day, unless you were doing construction I guess xD
True, but lifespan ranges 5-8 years and they need to spend money again on a new solution or new batteries, this is medium term solution for a long term problem
ahh fair enough , good point man, tbh I didn't know the life-span xD
we need of those wardenclyffs xD
How many years of service are they expecting to get out of these batteries? Cheers
From my research a commercial one has 5-8 years max. If they went with vanadium batteries instead of lithium it would be about 20years. Thank you for visiting
I must say - as an Australian - I find this deal concerning.
I'm glad I'm in QLD as I think it will happen again