Tesla installed the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in Hornsdale, South Australia about two years ago in 2017. The battery was based on the Tesla Powerpack batteries. The company has moved forward and built Megapack a utility-scale energy product that the company is hopeful will be able to replace the fossil fuel power plants while continuing the trend towards batteries as a sustainable energy source and alternative.
Energy is a quite smaller revenue driver for Tesla as opposed to electric cars according to reports. Out of $6.4 billion in total revenue that was generated during the second quarter, only $368 million came from solar and energy storage products of Tesla. Nonetheless, the company sees itself providing alternatives to natural gas power plants.
The Megapack was unveiled in a blog post on Monday by Tesla. It has been designed for easy installment and comes fully assembled with the battery modules, a thermal management system, bi-directional inverters, an AC main breaker, and controls. It offers up to 3 megawatt-hours of energy storage and 1.5MW of inverter capacity, thus making it the biggest energy storage system to date by Tesla.
The system comes with its own software that was developed by Tesla in-house for carrying monitoring, monetizing, and controlling the installations. The Megapack by Tesla will be providing 182.5 MW of the forthcoming 567 MW Moss Landing energy storage project in California with PG&E. The Megapack is the next phase of Tesla’s energy projects that have already been able to save millions. Hornsdale project by Tesla was able to merge a 100MW Powerpack system with Neone’s wind farm close to Jamestown, South Australia.
The Tesla Hornsdale project was able to save about $40 million in its first year. The company is hopeful that the Megapack will prove to be successful and help the company move forward to a future where the battery power will prove to be a viable and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels.