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Australia attempts to stop blackouts using batteries
HOW much power does a tweetstorm involving two tech tycoons, the prime minister
of Australia and 8.5m Twitter followers generate? Enough, at least, to
supercharge a debate about the future role of batteries in the world s energy
mix.
Elon Musk, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur (pictured), may be best known for his
gravity-defying ambition, but his core product is the battery: whether for his
Tesla cars, for the home or for grid-scale electricity storage. He gave the
last of these an unexpected jolt of publicity on March 10th, by responding to a
blackout-inspired challenge on Twitter from an Australian software billionaire,
Mike Cannon-Brookes. Mr Musk said he could install 100 megawatt hours (MWh) of
battery storage in the state of South Australia in 100 days to help solve an
energy crisis it faces, or it would be free of charge. That serious enough for
you? he asked.
In response, Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister, communicated with Mr Musk
and appeared to turn from pro-coal sceptic into battery believer. On March 14th
Jay Weatherill, the premier of South Australia, went further. Declaring that
the national electricity market was broken , he said the state would launch
its own A$550m ($415m) plan to build a 100MW battery system, as well as a
gas-fired power station, with public funds. Mr Musk may have got what he
wanted. He is good at bringing nerdy subjects to a broad audience , says Julia
Attwood of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Are batteries now cheap enough to be a cost-effective way of solving energy
crises like that in southern Australia, brought on since July by storms,
heatwaves, the intermittency of solar and wind power and the closure of coal-
and gas-fired power stations? The answer, says Michael Ottaviano of Carnegie
Clean Energy, which is hoping to sell its own grid-scale battery systems to the
state, is no especially under current market structures.
True, battery prices have plummeted and Mr Musk s price, of about $250 per
kilowatt hour (kWh), is relatively cheap. But the total cost (including
building the plant, for example) would be about $500 per kWh to hook the
batteries up to the grid. A 100MWh facility would cost $50m. Only when power
prices reach stratospheric levels would that investment make sense for a
utility. That s why the government of South Australia is having to stump up
instead. Eventually, practitioners hope that changes to the power market will
make battery storage viable without public funding. This is a short-term
Band-Aid until the regulatory process catches up, Mr Ottaviano says.
But it has all sparked a discussion about batteries that will keep going (and
going). On March 13th GTM, a consultancy, and the Energy Storage Association, a
trade body, said that battery installations in America, led by utility-scale
storage, doubled to 336MWh by the end of 2016. Much was in California, reacting
to the blowout of the Aliso Canyon gas plant in 2015. At least crises aren t
going to waste: an industry is emerging.