Members of the public in South Australia are being given the chance to participate in creating the biggest ‘virtual power plant’ of solar PV and batteries the world has ever seen.
New Zealand’s small handful of advanced energy storage systems will be added to with the NZ$2 million (US$1.45 million) trial deployment of a grid-scale Tesla Powerpack 2 by energy generator and retailer Mercury.
Hospitals, schools and railways in South Australia will be powered by an electricity retailer started up by billionaire steel trader Sanjeev Gupta, following the signing of an agreement between the state government and Gupta’s SIMEC ZEN Energy.
The government of the state of South Australia has named four utility-scale energy storage projects which it will support with grants toward the total cost of development.
Australian large-scale renewables investor Lyon Group has confirmed it is selling three projects under development, totalling 800MWh of energy storage and 545MW of PV generation capacity, in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.
Amidst experiencing Model 3’s “production hell”, launching a semi truck, a new Roadster and a portable battery pack, Tesla’s work on a 129MWh energy storage system in South Australia appears on track to be completed in time.
Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) will help finance the country’s first “unsubsidised large-scale grid-connected battery”, co-located with a wind farm in South Australia.
ZEN Energy’s newly appointed chairman has said he believes there is a “great future for energy-intensive industries in Australia,” as his company approved a 1GW plan for dispatchable renewables aimed at South Australia’s commercial and industrial sector.
A Tesla spokeswoman has confirmed that the company’s current undertaking to build a 129MWh battery storage facility will not use long-time supplier and partner Panasonic’s lithium-ion cells.
The government of Jay Weatherill, premier of South Australia, has just formally launched three Calls for Proposals under the Renewable Technology Fund, a programme to foster private investment and accelerate project development in clean energy technologies.
