Science Spies: Tesla Announces A New, Utility-Scale Energy Storage Product Called Megapack

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Tesla Announces A New, Utility-Scale Energy Storage Product Called Megapack

This week, Tesla announced a utility-scale energy storage solution, to be called Megapack. Modeled after the giant battery system it built as part of the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia, it can directly connect to renewable energy sources providing a constant source of power when the sun sets or the wind stops.

This system, called Powerpack, stored power generated by the wind farm and then delivered the electricity to the grid during peak hours. The facility saved nearly $40 million in its first year.

Tesla claims it can deploy a one gigawatt-hour plant over three acres in under three months, which is about four times faster than a comparable fossil fuel plant.

Concept illustration of the Megapack installed at a windfarm similar to Hornsdale

Tesla

This will be the third and largest energy storage system offered by Tesla. It also offer a residential-scale system called Powerwall and the commercial-scale version Powerpack. Tesla claims that Megapack will offer 60 percent greater energy density compared to it's existing Powerpack system.

This is the latest effort by the company to retool and grow its energy storage business, which is a smaller revenue driver than sales of its electric vehicles. Of the $6.4 billion in total revenue posted in the second quarter, just $368 million was from Tesla’s solar and energy storage product business.

Powerwalls are now installed at more than 50,000 sites and according to the company's second-quarter earnings report, it deployed a record 415 megawatt-hours of energy storage products in Q2, an 81% increase from the previous quarter.

It's a significant step forward company most known for the production of electric cars and that certainly benefits from its knowledge of battery technology. Back in 2006, Musk described Tesla’s “overarching purpose” is “to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution.”

The Megapack could provide a much-needed boost to the company if it can convince utilities companies to opt for this solution rather than the more common natural gas peaker plants. These are used when a local utility grid can’t provide enough power to meet peak demand, an occurrence that has become more common as temperatures and populations rise.

So far, it seems to be successful as Tesla’s Megapack will provide 182.5 MW of the upcoming 567 MW Moss Landing energy storage project in California with PG&E.

As the need for greater, industrial-scale battery efficiency increases , this could turn into a competitive international industry

Tesla

Tesla hopes to be the sustainable alternative. And in states like California, which have ambitious emissions targets, Tesla could gain some ground. Instead of using a natural gas peaker plant, utilities could use the Megapack to store excess solar or wind energy to support the grid’s peak loads.

In fact, only yesterday, the Southern Californian city of Glendale announced it was dropping a gas peaker in favor of clean alternatives.

As GreenTechMedia reported, the city council voted in April 2018 to pause development on the 262 megawatt repowering of the Grayson Power Plant and examine clean energy alternatives. Now, the municipal utility has completed an examination of 34 clean energy proposals and selected a diverse portfolio it says will meet reliability needs and save ratepayers $125 million.

The final portfolio, proposed in Glendale Water & Power's new integrated resource plan, would repower the Grayson Power Plant with a 75 megawatt/ 300 megawatt-hour Tesla battery installation and up to 93 megawatts of fast-ramping Wartsila engines.