So now you like models? LOL China, and now even India, are going into renewables in a big way. And the grid scale batteries have proven themselves with the 100 Mw/hr one in South Australia set to pay for itself in under a year. Proven itself to the point where the state is ordering another one, only 250 Mw/hr.
How Tesla's big battery is bringing Australia’s gas cartel to heel
On Sunday 14 January something very unusual happened.
The Australian Energy Market Operator called – as it often does – for generators in
South Australia to provide a modest amount of network services known as FCAS, or frequency control and ancillary services.
This time, though, the market price did not go into orbit and the credit must go to the
newly installed Tesla big battery and the neighbouring Hornsdale windfarm.
The call for 35MW of FCAS – usually made when there is planned maintenance or a system fault on the interconnector between Victoria and South Australia – has become a running joke in the electricity market, and a costly one for consumers.
The big gas generators – even though they have 10 times more capacity than is required – have systematically rorted the situation, sometimes charging up to $7m a day for a service that normally comes at one-tenth of the price.
(You can read reports on how they do it
here,
here and
here, and for a more detailed explanation at the bottom of this story.)
The difference in January was that there is a new player in the market: Tesla. The company’s
big battery, officially known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, bid into the market to ensure that prices stayed reasonable, as
predicted last year.
Rather than jumping up to prices of around $11,500 and $14,000/MW, the bidding of the
Tesla big battery – and, in a major new development, the adjoining Hornsdale windfarm – helped (after an initial spike) to keep them at around $270/MW.
The 390 lb/ft of torque in my Focus is not............on a very lightly modified car.
