Tesla's big battery gets even bigger

Tesla's big battery in South Australia came about because Lyndon Rive (the then head of Tesla Energy) suggested that a big battery would help prevent the blackouts which had plagued South Australia's grid.  Of course, the blackouts were blamed by fossil fuel shills on the high proportion of renewables in the SA grid.

The big battery worked very well, on one occasion keeping the lights on when the whole SE grid crashed because of outages from coal power stations.  It also made a handsome profit for its owner.

Now it is to be expanded by 50%.

French renewable energy and storage developer Neoen has confirmed that the so-called Tesla big battery at Hornsdale in South Australia will get a 50 per cent lift in capacity, and add new innovations and services that will help pave the way for the state to reach its goal of “net 100 per cent renewables”.

Officially known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, the battery will be the first in Australia to provide digital – or “virtual” – inertia to the grid, an important network service previously only delivered only by synchronous machines (coal, gas and hydro).

It is estimated that the upgraded battery could provide 3,000 “megawatt seconds”, or 50 per cent of the state’s inertia requirements, meaning that gas generators can be used more sparingly when there is enough wind and solar to meet the state’s electricity demand. It’s another key marker on the road to eliminating fossil fuels from the grid.

The addition of hundreds of new Tesla Powerpack batteries – at a cost of $71 million – will add 50MW/64.5MWh capacity to the existing facilities of 100MW/129MWh, lifting its capacity by 50 per cent and reinforcing its ranking as the biggest lithium-ion battery in the world.

The Hornsdale big battery in South Australia