The Revolution Blog

World’s biggest battery powers up down under

Sunday, Oct 28, 2018

You could argue that Elon Musk has always been on a power trip, but this example is pretty legit.


Tesla’s mega battery in southern Australia—the world’s largest lithium-ion—is already set to recoup 30 percent of its total cost by the time it celebrates its one-year anniversary next month. In March 2017, Musk promised to help solve the energy crisis in Australia by building and installing the entire site of batteries and transformers in less than 100 days. He delivered.

The gargantuan battery—officially called the Hornsdale Power Reserve—is actually 12,500 smaller battery pods connected together. Its storage capacity is 129 megawatts—that’s enough juice to power 30,000 houses for an hour. South Australia has been looking to save its fragile power grid ever since the entire state suffered a blackout during a storm last year. Powered by a wind farm next door, the Tesla Reserve has already been used to stabilize the grid, which it can do in less than a half a second.

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