Tesla builds the world's largest battery storage facility
Environment — di Rudi Bressa
Three storage systems are now operational in California. Together they cover 15% of all the capacity installed last year. They will power 15,000 families.
Tesla builds the world's largest battery storage facility
Three storage systems are now operational in California. Together they cover 15% of all the capacity installed last year. They will power 15,000 families.
The era of batteries has officially begun, with the inauguration of no fewer than three storage systems in Southern California. They were built by Tesla, Aes Corp and Altagas, working together to create what is today the world's largest operational storage facility.
Each installation, such as the one operational at Mira Loma, consists of a Powerpack system equipped with lithium-ion batteries made up of 16,000 cells per unit. This amounts to a total of 70 MW split across two 20 MW plants and one 30 MW plant. Bloomberg estimates that the system covers 15 per cent of all capacity installed during the past year and will supply electricity to 15,000 families.
"The Mira Loma site can provide energy storage equivalent to several hundred acres of solar panels," said JB Straubel, Tesla Chief Technology Officer.
All because of a gas leak
The idea of building a storage system came to life following the serious accident recorded last year at Aliso Canyon during the drilling of some gas wells, and a subsequent leak that released 30 tonnes of methane gas per hour into the atmosphere. It was the second-worst environmental disaster after the Deepwater Horizon accident by Bp, in the Gulf of Mexico.
For this reason, Southern California Edison (Sce), the local electricity supplier, decided to invest in the construction of a storage facility that would prevent possible blackouts and be capable of storing the electricity produced and supplying it during peak demand periods. A project completed in record time: three months for the design phase, plus another six for implementation. Not so long ago it would have taken years, Bloomberg writes.
Battery storage facilities, a rapidly growing solution
A project of this scale was made possible first and foremost by the rapid reduction in costs per kWh: from $599 per kWh in 2013 to $273 per kWh in 2016 (Bloomberg data). A reduction of nearly 50 per cent in three years. Moreover, the launch of Tesla's Gigafactory, in collaboration with Panasonic, has ushered in the era of batteries for storing energy from renewable sources produced on a large scale. This can also be seen in the latest projects carried out by the company founded by Elon Musk: on Ta'u, one of the islands of American Samoa situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thanks to 5,328 solar panels produced by SolarCity and 60 Powerpack battery packs, the island runs entirely on renewables.