Remember how Elon Musk came to the aid of South Australia around two years ago when the region was reeling in energy crisis? Tesla had created what was being deemed at the time as the world¡¯s largest lithium ion battery. Installed in Hornsdale, Australia, the assembly of Tesla Powerpack batteries managed to save around $40 million for the region in the first year of its installation alone. The bigger impact, however, was the elimination of the prevalent energy crisis. Tesla now aims to extend the solution worldwide and has even given it a name - Megapack!?
Essentially, a battery storage solution, Megapack is Tesla representation of utility-scale energy storage projects. In its recent announcement, the company says that each of the Megapack units come with a 3 megawatt hours (MWh) of storage and 1.5 MW of inverter capacity, fully assembled from the factory itself. In short, literally a power packed solution ready to be deployed right away.?
There are some notable improvements that the company claims to have with its Megapack over other energy solutions. Thanks to the Powerpack¡¯s advanced engineering, Tesla claims a 60% increase in energy density compared to other battery systems and traditional fossil fuel power plants. This further results in cost as well as time savings too.?
Tesla Megapack render. (Image: Tesla)
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Easy installation
Tesla claims a more efficient installation for the Megapack too, both in terms of time and space. It says that a 250 MW, 1 GWh power plant can be deployed in less than three month¡¯s time and in an area as less as a three-acre footprint. As per Tesla, that is four times faster than a traditional fossil fuel power plant of that size.?
The green impact
Energy storage solutions are being hailed as the major enablers of a sustainable energy use. That is because instead of producing new energy all the time, such solutions can trap the excess energy at the time of less loads on the grid, which can then be used at the time of peak loads.?
As for the Megapack, Tesla says that the battery storage can also be DC-connected directly to a solar plant, thus rendering a completely green energy solution in such a case.?
Tesla Solar Roof (Image: Tesla)
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Essentially, the Megapack is supposed to be a replacement to ¡°peaker¡± plants. For those unaware, peaker plants when the peak demand of a region crosses the total capacity of local utility grid, thus providing an extra bit of energy. Megapack, with its ability to meet this peak demand with its stored energy aims to eliminate the need for such peaker plants, which are deemed as inefficient (with a maximum of 42% thermodynamic efficiency), highly polluting as well as costly.?
The Tesla tag
Now Tesla is not the lone player in the industry offering a battery storage solution. The company, however, is renowned for the efficiency of its storage plants. It currently boasts of a total global footprint of more than 2 GWh of cumulative storage. With Megapack, it is only expected to grow this number multifold, all while eliminating those operations negatively affecting our planet Earth.