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Giant Tesla Battery In Australia Earns A Million Bucks In a Few Days (electrek.co)
Long-time Slashdot reader drinkypoo writes: Last week, Neoen's and Tesla's massive battery was paid up to $1000/MWh to charge itself and now it could have earned up to 1 million AUD in the last few days by selling the power back to the grid to cover a coal plant outage. Unlike other forms of power storage, battery systems can be switched between states (charging, discharging, or idle) effectively instantly, which permits a stabilizing effect on the grid.
"What we are seeing here," writes Fred Lambert at Electrek.co, "is the Powerpack system enabling Neoen to sell electricity at up to $14,000 AUD per MWh and charging itself at almost no cost during overproduction."
"What we are seeing here," writes Fred Lambert at Electrek.co, "is the Powerpack system enabling Neoen to sell electricity at up to $14,000 AUD per MWh and charging itself at almost no cost during overproduction."
They respond automatically to grid voltage or frequency drops. The accounting is done after the fact, but also I suspect automatically subject to previous agreements.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Closer to the right question, which is: is this the cheapest way to achieve this level of brownout protection and is that cheaper than the brownouts themselves.
Brownouts can destroy equipment, and severe shortages can also lead to blackouts. Both of those things can literally kill people. Let's prioritize keeping the power on. There's no better/cheaper/more effective device for grid stabilization than battery storage, today.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The battery was installed primarily to provide stability to the grid. Australia has a poor grid and the previous year had several costly blackouts. The battery can respond within milliseconds to grid instability whereas traditional power plants take minutes at a minimum. The battery has saved the grid multiple times in the few months it's been operational. When you want to stabilize the grid, it doesn't require a lot of power for a long time... just short bursts of power when it detects problems.
So, paying a lot of money for a small amount of power for a short period of time makes perfect sense if it keeps the grid from going down.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
"Seriously, this is a complete non-story. For example, pumped-storage hydropower plants have been doing this for ages."
This is a desert, no mountain and no water.