He said he’d do it in under 100 days, or South Australia would get it for free. Welp, terribly sorry SA, but you’re gonna have to cough up for Elon Musk‘s enormous Powerpack lithium ion battery.
The world’s biggest battery now resides on Hornsdale Wind Farm, the property of French wind power company Neoen, who were part of the agreement between Musk’s company Tesla and the South Australian government.
Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2017
The creatively-named Powerpack is a 100 megawatt capacity battery. The idea is to solve some of South Australia’s not-insignificant power issues by plonking a gigantic rechargeable battery in the middle of nowhere. After the massive blackout in September 2016, which saw power cut to 30,000 homes, the state is very much in the market for something that will prevent that from ever happening again.
Musk’s Powerpack is designed to “stabilise the South Australian grid” by providing enough power to supply tens of thousands of homes. Of course, the thing hasn’t been tested yet. It’ll get put through its paces over the next couple days, before officially going online on December 1.
And yes, Musk has, technically, completed the project in less than 100 days from signing on – even though by the time he’d signed the contract on September 29, he’d already finished half of it. Crafty bugger.
