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

Posted by msmash on from the moving-forward dept.

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.

4 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Fossil fools. The battery will help you TOO. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What people don't realize is that the electric grid is on demand; there has never before been a battery system. The power requirements of society must be monitored continuously, and generators must not only be put online as demand increases, but must also be taken offline as demand decreases.

    This has been one of the problems with the growth of solar panels in Hawaii. Those panels would dump more electricity into the grid than was needed, causing outages as safety mechanisms kicked in. Until batteries have become workable, the only thing to do with that extra power has been to squander it.

    Now, those batteries can be charged at off-peek hours by even those fossil fuel plants, and the batteries can then be used to supplement/smooth power requirements during peak hours. This will put fossil fuel plants under less stress, in terms of mechanics and personnel. It will make fossil fuel usage more efficient.

  2. Hollywood Solutions by citylivin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Star Trek's PADD device was a hollywood solution too. Until it wasn't.

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    As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
  3. Elon Musk ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    An engineer who delivered one fourth of what Elon Musk has delivered will be assured of a place in Engineering Hall of Fame. But what he has delivered is still a fraction of what he promised to deliver and he will be judged by how much he fell short...

    He might end up a pauper dying alone in a hotel room like his inspiration, Nicholi. Or he might actually deliver enough of what he promised to be ranked along with Whitney, Colt, Edison, Westinghouse, Ford as the leading light of American Industry....

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. Lithium? What about Vanadium Redox? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was under the impression that Australia already had substantial industrial-scale power grid energy storage using vanadium redox flow batteries.

    Seems to me that's a better match to the problem - unless Tesla has made drastic improvements in cost and cycle-life as a fallout of their work to improve them for cars and house-scale renewable storage.

    Lithium Ion batteries are, IMHO, more about portability of energy storage than price-efficiency.

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    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way