Tesla Switches on Giant Battery To Shore Up Australia's Grid (reuters.com)

Tesla switched on the world's biggest lithium ion battery on Friday in time to feed Australia's shaky power grid for the first day of summer, meeting a promise by Elon Musk to build it in 100 days or give it free. From a report: "South Australia is now leading the world in dispatchable renewable energy," state Premier Jay Weatherill said at the official launch at the Hornsdale wind farm, owned by private French firm Neoen. Tesla won a bid in July to build the 129-megawatt hour battery for South Australia, which expanded in wind power far quicker than the rest of the country, but has suffered a string of blackouts over the past 18 months. In a politically charged debate, opponents of the state's renewables push have argued that the battery is a "Hollywood solution" in a country that still relies on fossil fuels, mainly coal, for two-thirds of its electricity.

Comments

switches on?

[nospam007]

Did they ship it fully loaded?

Re:switches on?

[barbariccow]

Did they divert this battery from Puerto Rico to a richer area?

Re:Special Solution for a Special Problem

[DontBeAMoran]

You build enough excess solar and wind capacity that even under the worst conditions you still have enough for the entire continent (Canada and Mexico should be part of this grid also).

As a Canadian, I can already tell you that it will never work. Up north, we use metric electricity.

Re:Elon Musk

[thegarbz]

Personally I only ever hire armchair engineers. Real engineers are useless for a comedy show.