Tesla will unite 50,000 poor households in South Australia into a virtual power plant of 250 MW

Installation of the first Tesla Powerwall battery in the home of local resident Des Jenkins took place less than 24 hours after the official signing of the deal between Tesla and the government of South Australia. To the right of the battery - Premier Jay Weatheril, Minister of Energy Tom Kutsantonis and Minister of Social Housing Zoya Bettison

Tesla's giant Hornsdale Power Reserve system was very impressed with the state of South Australia - and on February 4, 2018, Prime Minister Jay Weatherill announced that he had signed a major deal with Tesla. The contract provides for the installation of solar panels and Powerwall 2 batteries in 50,000 homes with the integration of the entire system into a single “virtual power plant”. For tenants of social housing installation will be free. The project is socially oriented to reduce the cost of electricity for those who need it most.

The new project is compared with the Hornsdale Power Reserve system at 100 MW / 129 MW · h, which became operational on December 1, 2017. It accumulates energy from the nearest wind power plant - and gives it to the network during periods of maximum energy consumption (and the maximum price in the spot market).

“We are the world leaders in renewable energy with the world's largest rechargeable battery and the largest solar thermal plant, and now with the world's largest virtual power plant,” the premier said. “Her size determines her future success,” he added.

In the future, the project will involve more than 50,000 houses, but for the first pilot stage, 1,100 public houses will be limited, which are rented to the poorest low-income local residents. In these homes, at public expense, solar panels of 5 kW, a Powerwall 2 battery at 5 kW / 13.5 kWh and a smart meter will be installed. Part of the generated energy will go to the needs of the house itself, where the panels are installed, and the surplus will be accumulated in batteries and transferred to the common network.

The government expects to partially recoup the costs through the sale of electricity. A state grant of $ 2 million ($ 1.6 million) was allocated for this project and a loan was made at the state Renewable Technology Fund of A $ 30 million.

The total cost of the project is $ 800 million, the main part of the costs will be borne by investors. The implementation period is 4.5 years. If it is implemented in full, the “virtual power plant” will combine generating capacity of 250 MW and rechargeable batteries for electricity storage of 650 MW · h. This is about 2.5 times more than in the giant station Hornsdale Power Reserve, which is assembled on Tesla Powerpack batteries and inverters produced at Gigafabrika 1 in Nevada. According to government estimates, a “virtual power plant” on the roofs of poor people’s homes will provide about 20% of the state’s electricity needs.

The state of South Australia receives more than 40% of electricity from wind power plants. The newly-introduced Hornsdale Power Reserve battery system helps stabilize the power grid by responding to changes in frequency within milliseconds. According to Ilona Mask, this is the largest lithium-ion battery in the world.


Hornsdale Power Reserve System

By the way, elections for the prime minister of South Australia are scheduled for March 2018, so an action with the installation of 50,000 energy systems in the homes of local residents at public expense may well play in his favor. However, because of this, there is a suspicion that the action is not due to economic gain, but is rather populist in nature. The current Prime Minister from the Labor Party has already been criticized by the conservative Liberal Party. They call this project, and the entire policy of the current leadership in the field of renewable energy "reckless energy experiment", akin to the experiments, because of which electricity prices in other developed countries have greatly increased.

But supporters of the project promise, on the contrary, reduction of electricity by 30% for project participants (compared to an average price of 40 Australian cents per kilowatt · hour). In their estimates, they refer to the calculation made by analysts at Frontier Economics. Now there is a search for a retailer through which people will be sold electricity generated on the roofs of their houses.

On the official website, local residents can leave applications for participation. Currently the installation is completed or continues in 100 houses. Until the end of 2018, Tesla promises to equip 600 houses with panels and batteries, and by June 2022 - 50,000 houses.