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Tesla has just installed its largest energy storage project in Asia so far – and hardware deployment has only taken two days. (Here's a time frame of construction on Instagram.)
According to Tesla, the installation of 7 megawatt hours in Osaka, Japan, is intended to provide emergency power back-up to a Kintetsu train line, with enough energy to route a train in all directions. security until the next station in case of network failure. The system, consisting of 42 Tesla industrial Powerpack batteries, will also help "reduce energy demand on the Osaka grid during peak hours."
the energy storage system can secure one of Kintetsu's trains for up to 30 minutes. This is the largest Tesla battery installed in Asia and the fourth in the APAC region, according to the electric vehicle manufacturer.
Dan Finn-Foley, Storage Analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said: "A hospital essentially needs unlimited backup, so it's hard to use a battery, but if all you need is an hour's time to get trains to the station, "a battery" makes a lot of sense. "
Other railway batteries
Japan is not the only country to explore the use of batteries in trains.
The former California governor, Jerry Brown, has long been planning to build the United States' first electrified high speed train system. GE has built a battery-powered locomotive and China has made some forays into the electric rail. The Italian energy giant, Enel, plans to introduce 10-megawatt-hours lithium-ion batteries on Russian railways to help trains run more efficiently.
Batteries have also been used in some pilot regenerative braking programs. But beyond a few examples, lithium-ion battery technology has not yet gained a major presence in the rail industry.
The Osaka battery should be operational on April 1st.
The neglected energy activity of Tesla
In the midst of the never-ending drama of Tesla's electric vehicles, it's easy to lose track of its energy business and its habit of setting energy storage facility records.
The current record holder of the world's largest battery is Tesla's 100 megawatt system in Australia. And Tesla has potentially won a contract with Californian electricity supplier PG & E for an even larger battery of 182.5 megawatts / 730 megawatt hours that will replace gasoline generators and save on electricity bills. money to taxpayers.
At the recent unveiling of the Y model, Musk announced renewed attention to its energy sector. "It's the year of the solar roof and the Powerwall," he said.
"Batteries were rare in 2018 because all resources had to be reallocated to Model 3 production – otherwise we would die," he added. "But now that the production of model 3 is going well, we are excited about the solar roof, the solar renovation and the Powerwall."
Tesla has deployed a total of 1.04 gigawatt hours of energy storage in 2018, an impressive tripling from 2017. Tesla's 2018 investor's letter stated that "a better offer of cells and new manufacturing equipment "would move storage deployments to" more than 2 gigawatt hours in 2019 "with increasing profitability.
"It's clear that large-scale energy storage represents a huge opportunity for us," Musk said recently.
A "surprising" fall in the LCOE battery
Falling prices makes the use of batteries more and more attractive in many applications.
A recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance on the discounted average cost of energy (LCOE) found that the long-term cost of supplying electricity to the grid from current lithium-ion batteries further decreases. faster than expected, making it an increasingly competitive alternative to cost-based gas.
According to its badysis of more than 7,000 projects worldwide, the LCOE for lithium-ion batteries has dropped 35% to $ 187 per megawatt hour since the first half of 2018.
Regarding the hardware costs of the battery (a different metric), CEO Elon Musk said last year that Tesla could build batteries at the cell level at a price of $ 100 per kilowatt hour and that # He would soon be able to build batteries at $ 100 a kilowatt hour. .
The BNEF report notes that "batteries in solar or wind projects are beginning to compete, in many markets and without subsidies, with coal and gas production for the supply of" distributable energy "that can be provided at any time in need (as opposed to only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining). "
The prices of solar energy storage and energy have reached record levels for a year and a half, including Xcel Energy's RFP in Colorado, where solar storage offers more storage were as low as $ 36 per megawatt hour, compared to $ 25 per megawatt. -time for autonomous solar.
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