Elon Musk to fix South Australia’s electricity woes in 100 days
10 Mar 2017
Tesla Inc chief Elon Musk yesterday offered to install 100 MW worth of battery storage valued at $25 million in South Australia within 100 days of signing a contract.
The offer comes after the state of South Australia suffered several blackouts. In a particularly severe instance, industrial enterprises were crippled for up to two weeks amidst fears of more outages due to tight supplies.
Yesterday, Lyndon Reve, Tesla's vice-president for energy products, told the Australian Financial Review that the company could install the 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage that would be required to prevent the power shortages that had been causing price spikes and blackouts in the state.
Mike Cannon-Brookes, the Australian co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Atlassian, asked Musk in a tweet if Tesla was serious about being able to install the capacity.
In response Musk replied today that the company could do it in 100 days of the contract being signed, or else provide it free, adding: ''That serious enough for you?''
Musk quoted a price of $250 per kilowatt hour for 100 megawatt hour systems, which worked out to a price of $25 million for the battery packs.
"You're on mate. Give me 7 days to try and sort out politics & funding," tweeted Cannon-Brookes.
Cannon-Brookes said he was flooded with calls and was keen to start work on it.
"My phone hasn't stopped buzzing. The support is flooding in, both from individuals in terms of 'Hell yes!' and from corporates who are asking: 'Can we buy power? Can we contribute dollars?'," Cannon-Brookes told Reuters.
Tesla had been promoting its Powerwall 2 and Powerpack 2 battery products in Australia this week.
"Storage can solve the immediate problem within the next 100 days," Musk told ABC News.
Tesla vice president for energy products, Lyndon Reve, said it could help prevent increasingly regular blackouts in South Australia.
