A 50 per cent expansion of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in South Australia is now fully operational, increasing its potential output by 50 megawatts (MW).
After weeks of testing, the Tesla battery at Hornsdale, near Jamestown in the state’s mid-north, is now capable of delivering 150MW, or 189MWh.
The expansion, delivered by French renewables company Neoen in conjunction with Tesla and the South Australian and federal Liberal-National governments throught the CEFC and ARENA, is intended to help stabilise the national power grid.
“What’s great about this expansion is it’s making the battery bigger and smarter,” Neoen managing director Louis de Sambucy said in an emailed statement.
“We will be providing a number of grid-stabilising services, to keep the voltage and frequency very stable,” he said.
South Australia’s energy minister, Dan Van Holst Pellekaan, told ABC News that stabilising technology would prevent large-scale blackouts.
“Batteries can suck massive amounts of electricity out of the grid within milliseconds and they can pump massive amounts of electricity back into the grid within milliseconds,” he said.
“That shock absorber-type capacity is what helps us to stop a blackout that would otherwise occur.”
Apart from keeping the lights on, the giant battery has also been credited with driving down power bills.
An independent review by consultancy firm Aurecon found the Tesla battery has saved South Australian consumers more than $150 million since it was built in 2017.
“We expect these savings will continue to grow,” Mr Pellekaan said.
The reason large-scale batteries are so crucial to South Australia’s grid stability is due to the state’s enormous uptake of renewable energy.
For example, more than 278,000 houses in South Australia have rooftop solar panels.
“A third of households with solar is an enormous aggregated solar generator and we can’t actually manage it,” Mr Pellekaan said.
The problem arises when surplus power generated by rooftop solar panels is fed back into the grid at a rate it cannot handle.
“There are times when we have nearly more electricity going back into the grid from solar than we have coming out of it, and if it crosses that threshold, it’ll be a disaster for the grid,” Mr Pellekaan said.
The ‘disaster’, namely, is a statewide power blackout.
“We can turn off wind farms, solar farms, gas generators, but it’s predicted that if we allow all of the solar from households into the grid, then we will be in all sorts of strife.”
To address this, the state government has allowed SA Power Networks (SAPN), the state’s sole electricity distributor, to remotely switch off solar panels during peak times.
“The solar can still operate, deliver electricity to the house, and fill a battery in a house, but surplus will be curtailed.”
Despite giving SAPN additional powers, South Australia’s Energy Minister rejected changing feed-in tariffs.
Instead, the government is advocating for the widescale adoption of batteries.
“For us to be able to effectively use and have affordable renewable energy, we need more and more of these grid-scale batteries as well as the small household batteries,” Mr Pellekaan said.
“Home batteries are a huge help, because people fill the batteries up rather than putting electricity back into the grid.
“They are one of the most important tools we need in our state to keep electricity prices going downwards and also to make electricity more reliable.”
As for Neoen, Mr de Sambucy would not rule out further expansions of the giant battery in the future.
“Never say never!
“I know all the partners would be extremely interested in what we’re able to do with this battery, and what type of services we’ll be able to provide South Australians.”
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