Giant Tesla Battery Project Now Proposed For Silicon Valley (digitaltrends.com)

Digital Trends reports: Tesla's largest-ever Powerpack installation may be coming to Northern California. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) applied to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval for a utility-owned 182.5 MW energy storage farm using Tesla Powerpacks at the company's energy storage site in Moss Landing... The Tesla project, however, would have an expansion capacity of 1.1 GW. The storage projects' purpose is to help keep electrical power levels even for PG&E customers. The storage facilities would feed power to the grid when consumption exceeds normal levels and during blackouts or other service interruptions.
Tesla's giant battery in Australia has already reduced grid service costs by 90%.

And speaking of power sources, long-time Slasdot reader judgecorp writes: A disused Stanley Black & Decker factory in New Britain, Hartford County.CT, will get a 20MW micro-grid powered by fuel cells, according to the first phase of a plan unveiled by the State Governor. It's a big deal because it will be the largest indoor micro-grid in the world, and will help provide a reliable power source for a data center in the old factory. Along with the other phases of the project, Governor Dannel Malloy hopes the deal will provide 3,000 jobs and lots of tax revenue.

Comments

Units!

[Roger W Moore]

When it comes to energy storage the usual number to quote is how much energy it stores. The rate you can drain energy from it, while not irrelevant, doesn't tell you much because it provides no idea of how long it can provide that power for: a few seconds to cope with surges, an hour or two while they start up a power station or 12+ hours to smooth out e.g. solar power.

Since the article appears to confuse MW with MWh at one point I suspect that this is yet another example of journalists not understanding the difference between power and energy.

Re: When all you have is a hammer

[Rei]

That is the official rated lifespan for Tesla's grid products. Accelerated lifecycle testing is not a new concept. It's also worth noting that degradation in Tesla's vehicle batteries has been very, very low. Early model-year Model S taxis with several hundred thousand kilometers on them still show over 90% capacity retention. And the grid products use a longer cycle life chemistry.