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TESLA to build worlds biggest battery in South Australia

30yearsofhurt

30yearsofhurt

Member
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/sa-to-get-worlds-biggest-lithium-ion-battery/8687268

The world's largest lithium ion battery will be installed in South Australia under an agreement between Tesla, Neoen and the State Government, Premier Jay Weatherill has announced.

Tesla will build the battery which will store energy from French renewable company Neoen's Hornsdale Wind Farm, which is still under construction.

The project will be in place before summer.

According to the Government, Tesla boss Elon Musk has confirmed his commitment to deliver the battery within 100 days or it is free.

The 100 days starts once the grid interconnection agreement has been signed.

The Government has said the 100-megawatt (129 megawatt hour) battery places SA at the forefront of global energy storage technology.

The battery will operate at all times providing stability services for renewable energy and will be available to provide emergency back-up power if a shortfall in energy is predicted.

Mr Musk, who is the boss of Tesla and Space X, pledged via Twitter in March to fix South Australia's electricity within 100 days or the solution would be free.

The pledge caught the attention of the twittersphere and fellow billionaire tech guru Australian Mike Cannon-Brookes, who co-founded software company Atlassian, who tweeted, "Holy s#%t".

Mr Musk also spoke with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and followed up with talks with Mr Weatherill.

Later in March, the SA Government announced a $500-million power plan, which included owning and operating a $360-million gas-fired plant and building a 100MW battery before summer.
Click to expand...

More at the link.

For some historical context:
  • Australia had universal agreement on emissions trading between Labor (centre-left) and Liberal-National coalition (conservatives) back in 2009.
  • A carbon tax was introduced by Labor at the behest of securing supply from Green party senators.
  • Tony Abbott (ratbag extraordinaire and all round c***) rolled Malcolm Turnbull (silver spooned toff moderate) for leader of the conservatives.
  • Labor rolled Kevin Rudd (mild mannered lunatic) as PM and installed Julia Gillard (cardboard cutout ginger-nut) in his place.
  • Tony Abbott ran one of the most vile and misogynistic NEWS Ltd assisted campaigns in Australian electoral history against Gillard (tame by american standards)
  • Parliament hung after 2010 election.
  • Gillard gets shit done in minority government for next three years in face of internal bickering and vile NEWS Ltd coverage.
  • 2013 election is run with the carbon tax as the key issue.
  • Labor is routed, Abbott prime minister.
  • Carbon tax repealed.
  • Investment in new coal power stations stops in its tracks as Electricity generators can't make plans in an environment where the price of renewable power is dropping and the regulatory framework is uncertain. Investment in wind and solar farms increases much to the displeasure of conservatives.
  • Conservative coalition is a mess and Abbott quickly becomes massively unpopular.
  • Abbott gets rolled and replaced with Turnbull. Conservatives cry. The majority of Australians breath a sigh of relief.
  • 2016 election sees Turnbull hang on to power by one seat.
  • South Australia has a major power emergency after severe weather damages power infrastructure. Conservatives try to blame wind farms.
  • Elon Musk makes offer to South Australia of solar and battery infrastructure.
  • Massive price rises for electricity hit Australia due to mothballing of aged and ancient coal power plants.
  • South Australia say 'yes' to Musk's offer.
 
M

Machina

Banned
Waiting for the far right to start screeching about foreign billionaires interfering in Australia's internal affairs...... :)

rupert_murdoch5.jpg
 
R

remz

Member
Lol love it. Seems like a net win and I like anything that makes the coal obsessed wankers in parliament look like the fuckheads they are
 
F

F!ReW!Re

Member
There's so much unused stretches of land/outback/desert.
Seems like it's a perfect place to deploy this over here.

Bring it on.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z

Ozzy Onya A2Z

Member
Love it, now move to more solar Australia. I still have to laugh there's a win win in the government rebating house solar installations to avoid investing in infrastructure. Anyway the wheels of progress moving faster/closer to renewable energy is all for the better.

Can we just vote Musk in for Australian Prime Minster now please? Just change the laws and make it happen people. Perhaps just let him be Global Prime Minister already.
 
B

Bernbaum

Member
OP is about as comprehensive a summary as anyone needs to understand the circus of mediocrity that is Australian politics.
 
J

jdstorm

Banned
Bernbaum said:
OP is about as comprehensive a summary as anyone needs to understand the circus of mediocrity that is Australian politics.
Click to expand...

OPs strongly bias. Both the Liberal and Labor parties were terrible over that period (and are pretty rubbish now) OP paints a view that is incredibly bias towards the labor party.

Australia was just lucky that a hung parliment prevented two bad candidates from doing untold damage.
 
nekkid

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
Thread about world's biggest battery. No dimensions.

Disappointing.
 
D

DrSlek

Member
Battery will be up and running in time for summer apparently.

So presumably before December of this year.
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
Between this, launching three Falcon 9s and the Model 3 news, it's been a pretty good 10 days for Based Elon.
 
bitbydeath

bitbydeath

Member
jdstorm said:
OPs strongly bias. Both the Liberal and Labor parties were terrible over that period (and are pretty rubbish now) OP paints a view that is incredibly bias towards the labor party.

Australia was just lucky that a hung parliment prevented two bad candidates from doing untold damage.
Click to expand...

Not really, Abbott was Australias version of Trump.
 
D

danthefan

Member
Sounds great on face value but what's the environmental impact of obtaining the materials needed for these massive batteries?
 
Z

Zushin

Member
Great summary of the shit show OP. Glad to see SA do this. Big fuck you to the mongs at the head of the table.
 
D

DJKhaled

Member
jdstorm said:
OPs strongly bias. Both the Liberal and Labor parties were terrible over that period (and are pretty rubbish now) OP paints a view that is incredibly bias towards the labor party.

Australia was just lucky that a hung parliment prevented two bad candidates from doing untold damage.
Click to expand...
What a load of crap. Labor was fine, the only people that thought they were doing bad things were the people listening to Murdoch. Labors policies now are more progressive than back then but Labor was still decent back then as well.
 
J

jdstorm

Banned
bitbydeath said:
Not really, Abbott was Australias version of Trump.
Click to expand...

Thats untrue. Abbot was much more competant. If anything he was Australia's Putin and tall poppy syndrome thankfully got him kicked before he was able to do any lasting damage.

DJKhaled said:
What a load of crap. Labor was fine, the only people that thought they were doing bad things were the people listening to Murdoch. Labors policies now are more progressive than back then but Labor was still decent back then as well.
Click to expand...

Gillard reopened the Manus Island detention center among other missteps. There were legitimate reasons to think Labor did a poor job of leading the Australia during the last decade.

Obviously it wasn't a both sides were equal situation. Abbot was a disaster. However Labor's incompetence and inability to effectively govern led to a hung parliment as the majority of Australians couldnt bring themselves to vote for either party to have a majority.

This also led to a senate full of independents.
 
D

Dingens

Member
Well... at least if it blows up there won't be anyone around to be affected

edit: wouldn't a battery of that size also generate a lot of heat, making some sort of cooling solution necessary?
 
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