Elon Musk's big battery boosts South Australian 2017 energy plan; its national benefits bring a 50% size rise in 2019
The Tesla 100MW battery, fed by French company Neoen's Hornsdale wind farm, near Jamestown, was increased by 50% in size from 2019.
Elon Musk's 100MW battery at Jamestown, north of Adelaide, has been such as bonus to the national energy grid that it earned a 50% size increase in 2019, funded by both the Australian and South Australian governments.
A tweet from Tesla owner Elon Musk, saying he could help fix South Australia’s energy problems in 100 days “or it’s free”, tied in ideally with the state government’s move to have a 100MW battery installed as part of its $550 million six-point energy plan.
Tesla was successful among about 90 bidders, most from overseas, to build the battery. By December 2017, the world’s biggest lithium ion battery, built by Tesla near Jamestown, was connected and operating in to the national grid.
The battery draws its power from the Hornsdale wind farm, operated by France’s renewable energy giant Neoen.
The Tesla 100MW/129MWh lithium ion battery is three times larger than the previous largest in the world. It provides a commercial advantages, value-adding and international exposure.
But the value of the Tesla Jamestown battery is measured in milliseconds. Its role – and it soon showed this in the national grid – is in quick response to controlling power frequency.
Controlling frequency changes, that can cause shutdowns through tripping, is a major ongoing challenge in the national grid for the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
South Australia’s Tesla battery system is designed, very specifically, to address power supply reliability by controlling frequency blips in a millisecond.
Lithium ion batteries are perfectly suited to making millisecond injections of power to correct those blips caused when the balance between supply and demand is skewed. Lithium batteries are quicker in their responses than coal-fired power stations and pumped hydro. This quick response, vital to keeping a dynamic grid stable, is the value of the batteries. They cannot be seen as providing baseload power supply over a long time.
