South Australia has an electricity problem. This coming summer its citizens may face blackouts because it lacks the electric generating power to meet its needs and that could be a financial catastrophe. It is seriously considering a bold step - to use a giant battery to light the state during the hours of darkness with that battery recharged from solar and wind power generation.
This idea is at the urging of Elon Musk, a man who is one of the five richest people in the world. Musk was one of the co-inventors of what is called " Pay-Pal " and from there he went on to develop the worlds best selling electric car and re-useable space rockets. He also has developed the most advanced battery system to power his electric cars.
This idea is revolutionary. Somewhere near the city of Adelaide Musk proposes to create a battery farm as big as an entire city block capable of storing 129 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power about 13,000 homes for twenty-four hours - or 30,000 homes overnight during a power crisis. This would be accompanied by a French owned wind farm feeding a re-charge into this battery storage.
This is not intended to be a replacement for South Australia's other means of power generation. It would keep the lights burning during the sort of power interruption that crippled the state last year, but it would also feed in cheap power at peak load times and lower customer retail prices. It seems the first serious suggestion to actually integrate solar and wind with a form of storage to make " renewables " a working model.
Musk has made an interesting offer. He has pledged to create that battery farm and have it in operational mode in just one hundred days after the signing of a contract - or he will pickup the tab for the entire cost. This billionaire certainly has the assets to make that offer believable. It is also possible to have such a project on line before this coming summer heat arrives - if South Australia makes a quick decision.
This is simply too big a gamble to test in either New South Wales or Victoria but South Australia is an ideal smaller state - and it is helpful that it already has a power shortfall that needs urgent correction. If we are serious in wanting to curb the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation then this is the first real chance to bring renewables into an integral part of the power system.
If we hesitate, then some other part of the world will most likely take up this offer.
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