Antinuclear

Tesla’s energy storage could be the answer to South Australia’s electricity problems

Tesla’s offer: How SA’s power network could benefit from energy storage, ABC News,  By Michael Collett 11 Mar 17 South Australia’s energy network has been struggling of late — there were forced blackouts for tens of thousands of homes during a heatwave last month because there wasn’t enough power to meet demand.

But Tesla thinks it has a solution. The company’s billionaire boss Elon Musk says he could install a battery farm capable of fixing the system within 100 days of signing a contract.

It’s a suggestion that the Grattan Institute’s energy expert Tony Wood says should be taken seriously, but it’s not the only electricity storage option that’s available.

What’s the advantage of electricity storage? The idea is that energy storage technologies can take power during off-peak hours and put it back into the grid when it’s needed.

As well, wind and solar are intermittent sources of electricity generation, so this power needs to be stored if the grid is to rely entirely on renewables. (Keep in mind that South Australia already gets about 50 per cent of its energy from renewables, mostly wind and solar.)

One storage technology that’s getting a lot of press is Tesla’s Powerpack.

Tesla says this battery is “infinitely scalable” — that means a business could buy a single Powerpack so that it still has power during a blackout, while a city, state or country could install hundreds, thousands or even millions of them in order to support an entire grid.

In 2015, Musk said you’d be able to transition the United States to renewable energy with 160 million of them, and the entire world with 900 million……

March 13, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | South Australia, storage