This week, Tesla announced a utility-scale energy storage solution, to be called Megapack. Modelled after the giant battery system is built as part of the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia, it can directly connect to renewable energy sources providing a constant source of power when the sun sets or the wind stops.
This system, called Powerpack, stored power generated by the wind farm and then delivered the electricity to the grid during peak hours. The facility saved nearly $40 million in its first year.
Tesla claims it can deploy one gigawatt-hour plant over three acres in under three months, which is about four times faster than a comparable fossil fuel plant. This will be the third and largest energy storage system offered by Tesla. It also offer a residential-scale system called Powerwall and the commercial-scale version Powerpack. Tesla claims that Megapack will offer 60 percent greater energy density compared to it’s existing Powerpack system.
This is the latest effort by the company to retool and grow its energy storage business, which is a smaller revenue driver than sales of its electric vehicles. Of the $6.4 billion in total revenue posted in the second quarter, just $368 million was from Tesla’s solar and energy storage product business.
Powerwalls are now installed at more than 50,000 sites and according to the company’s second-quarter earnings report, it deployed a record 415 megawatt-hours of energy storage products in Q2, an 81% increase from the previous quarter.
