Tesla just signed the biggest energy storage deal ever known. The company will deploy 20 megawatts of energy storage as a backup to Southern California’s grid.
Ever since Tesla announced the Powerwall, it was clear that the company is going to be a big player in the energy storage field. However, no one could quite anticipate how big is ‘big’.
Of course, none of the projects initiated by Elon Musk has ever been of a small scale. So with this in mind, it is probably not a surprise that exactly Tesla is the first company to sign the biggest deal for energy storage yet.
A small background to the story. Last year, California experienced the biggest natural gas leak in the history of the U.S., which resulted in numerous power cuts and system failures. Fearing that this can happen again, possibly with an even bigger impact, the guys at Southern California Edison, took the matters in their own hands. They decided to have an energy storage system, which has the capacity to power up to 2,500 homes for a full day in case of power failures.
This resulted in a heated battle over who will give the best offer. Naturally, it was Tesla who won and signed a deal to provide a grid scale energy storage to Southern California.
There are two groundbreaking announcements here.
First, Tesla’s energy storage system will be the biggest in the world, supplying 20 megawatts (80 megawatt-hours) of energy.
And because this is not enough, the giant Tesla is amazing the world even more by promising to deploy the entire system before the end of the year.
Looking at the grand plans that Musk has for his company, this project fits right in. Tesla will soon be not only among the greatest in the electric vehicles world, but will also be among the biggest players in renewable energy and energy storage.
The company once again showed that they are ready to take up any large scale project. They clearly have the right capacity and qualified people to complete the task. Now, let’s see what will happen when all this is in place.
The amount of money that Tesla will receive as part of this deal is not disclosed. However, the the sum will surely not go below a couple of tens of millions of US dollars.
Image (c) Getty
