Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has completed construction of the world's largest lithium ion battery in Australia, putting it on track to meet a 100-day deadline for switching the battery packs on, the South Australian government said yesterday.
Tesla won a bid in July to build the 129 megawatt hour battery for South Australia, the country's most wind power-dependent state, with a vow from Chief Executive Elon Musk to install it within 100 days of signing a grid connection agreement or give it to the state for free.
When the grid connection deal was signed on Sept 29, Tesla was already half way through installing the battery packs.
The Tesla Powerpacks have now been fully installed at a wind farm run by France's Neoen, and testing is set to begin to provide grid security services in South Australia.
"While others are just talking, we are delivering our energy plan, making South Australia more self-sufficient, and providing back up power and more affordable energy for South Australians this summer," state Premier Jay Weatherill said in a statement.
The state has yet to say how much it would pay for the battery, which is part of a A$510 million ($390 million) plan that includes diesel-fired generators to help keep the lights on following a string of blackouts over the past 18 months.
Australia's energy market operator has warned that power supply will be tight this summer, particularly in South Australia and neighboring Victoria, where one of the market's biggest coal-fired power plants was shut in March.
"The system will be three times more powerful than any system on earth," Musk previously told reporters. "This is not like a minor foray into the frontier - this is like going three times further than anyone's gone before."
South Australia
, which relies heavily on solar and wind-generated energy, has been scrambling to find a way to bolster its fragile power grid since the entire state suffered a blackout during a storm last year. Further blackouts plagued the state over the next few months.
The South Australia battery will store energy from Neoen's Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of Adelaide. It will deliver energy during peak usage hours to help maintain the state's supply, and could power 30,000 homes, Tesla said.
Musk previously said failing to deliver the project in time would cost his company "$50 million or more", without elaborating.
Reuters previously reported it will be the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world, overtaking an 80 megawatt-hour facility in California, also built using Tesla batteries.
Musk said it was "common sense that if you have solar you must have battery because otherwise your power is going to be proportionate to how sunny it is".
"I specifically think that the consistently lowering cost of batteries, coupled with renewables, is going to fundamentally reshape the energy landscape much faster than anyone thinks it will," Cal Lankton, Tesla's vice president of global infrastructure operations, added.
Australia is one of the world's worst per capita greenhouse gas polluters due to heavy use of coal-fired power.