The project would improve South Australia's electrical grid. Elon Musk says the installation will be done within 100 days from the contract signature or it will be free.
Elon Musk is a man of his word. In March the Tesla CEO tweeted a promise that he would help South Australia solve its energy woes in 100 days with a new power storage system – or give the whole thing away for free. Now he’s following up on that promise, having inked a deal with the State government to build the world’s largest Lithium ion battery. If he can’t finish in 100 days, the energy titan estimates he’ll lose a cool $50 million.
“There is certainly some risk, because this will be the largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin … the next biggest battery in the world is 30 megawatts,” Musk said at a recent press conference. According to local news sites, Musk said that Tesla will make an effort to make the 100MW battery storage system aesthetically-pleasing so that it can double as a tourist attraction.
He said it will look like a series of white obelisks. Tesla’s 129MWh battery system will store energy – produced by a nearby wind farm still under construction by the French company Neoen, providing greater stability and a backup power source when necessary. “You can essentially charge up the battery packs when you have excess power when the cost of production is very low,” Musk said, “…and then discharge it when the cost of power production is high, and this effectively lowers the average cost to the end customer.”