Tesla Turns on the World's Largest Battery

Could this Mr. Tesla explain that; where he got access to the lithium that much to create both internationally bestselling and popular vehicles and now football field sized batteries..?


Did anyone ever mention the war torn Afghanistan..? That’s where the most lithium comes from (free of charge)…!



venturebeat.com...


www.popsci.com...-2


gizmodo.com...


www.marketwatch.com...



That’s why the muricans is there killing innocent people for 15 years to get the free minerals out… Isn’t it..?

a reply to: Kkintekk

Tesla represents only a fraction of the likely demand growth. According to BMI, China will build twice as much new lithium-ion battery capacity as the U.S. by 2020. Lithium is relatively abundant in the earth’s crust but often hard to get to, and the technology needed to extract it can differ from one deposit to another.

fortune.com...

China
benchmarkminerals.com...

As was mentioned on previous pages, a combined effort between a few past innovative ideas by thinkers, would be wise for them to consider. I don't have the answer to this, do you have an answer? If it's not coal its going to be something else. Maybe everyone should start with their cel phones.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

I hope we don't see this gigantic battery explode like the Tesla car battery that blew up, killing someone

a reply to: FamCore

Well, it's not one gigantic battery it's many smaller ones. And like anything else technology wise, I sincerely hope the same.

originally posted by: rickymouse
I can see this being a good buffer for solar or wind power. Even an hour of reserve can help with flow of electricity. The wind can stop or clouds can come over and it increases demand on the coal plants during that time. The battery can also absorb spikes so that it does not go back into the generators or panels, although it would be cheaper to install capacitors to help with a lightning strike. I use a whole house surge protector now, it works well, so did the battery backup I first got. But the battery backup only protected the computer, the surge protector protects the house. We got lots of surges before, I hate having things burn out and it is hard to prove that lightning killed things unless you have multiple things burn out at the same time. Insurance deductable is two hundred fifty bucks, the surge protector cost me seventy bucks.

That is all batteries can do right now, provide a buffer for the gas peakers to kick in. Nothing wrong with that as long as people realise that's all they can do.

The energy market in Australia is volatile and will get more so as they turn off coal, our only backup is some pumped storage hydro and gas fired aero derivatives.

The largest battery in the world can only offer a few minutes of power to a small number of people, it couldn't stop a blackout in Adelaide, city which most people on earth havnt heard of and is smaller than some American towns.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack


I was kinda hoping for the conspiracy angle of him getting the Great Pyramid running and kicking out some juice.

Observe:

Your lithium-ion batteries power your smartphone, laptop, and camera. Elon Musk’s powers South Australia. On December 1, a mega-battery built by Musk’s Tesla company was officially activated and is now supplying power to an electricity grid in South Australia. On Friday, RenewEconomy posted some of the results of Tesla’s efforts in Australia and they were rather impressive. Apparently, the battery has reduced service costs by as much as 90 percent.

“In the first four months of operations of the Hornsdale Power Reserve (the official name of the Tesla big battery, owned and operated by Neoen), the frequency ancillary services prices went down by 90 per cent, so that’s 9-0 per cent,” said McKinsey and Co. partner Godart van Gendt.

Source

It's working, and it's working in a very big way. I'm sure some people will find a way to criticize this any way, just because it's Elon Musk, but the results are in.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

That would be akin to the big bang of conspiracies if it happened, for sure.

a reply to: Kkintekk

Did anyone ever mention the war torn Afghanistan..? That’s where the most lithium comes from (free of charge)…!

Ahhh, that would be a negatory, good buddy.

List of countries by Lithium production

1. Australia
2. Chile
3. Argentina
4. China
5. Zimbabwe
6. Portugal
7. Brazil

Yes, Afghanistan does apparently have lithium, however getting that into production is currently a pie in the sky hope for the Afghan authorities.

There is currently plenty of lithium available on the world market without opening up new reserves in a war-torn country with an unstable political environment. Of course the Afghan government is exploring all their options, but new deposits are opening up in Germany and Bolivia. Of course, China is busily cornering the market and squeezing other manufacturers like Tesla, but its silly to imagine that Tesla, who cannot get enough lithium to the right place to make enough batteries for the Model S would be magically getting free lithium from non-existent Afghan mines.

Afghanistan also have huge, mostly untapped, copper deposits which I suspect they will get into production before they go after lithium. China, the U.S., and Canada are all actively competing for production leases at the moment.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

if this is a Li-ion battery, wait for it...I see an explosion like a small nuke.

When I read the OP's title, I thought, why would Musk 'turn on'(as in against) his own battery?

a reply to: UMayBRite!

Who can know the Mind of a Billionaire with great ideas?

Power 30k homes for an hour?

Gasoline can power my boat for longer.

Invalid statments mean nothing.

If it runs for a year, it can power 30k homes for a year? If it runs for a decade it can power 30k homes for a year? If it runs for 30 seconds it can power 30k home for a year?

Has the entire world went retarded, paying mind to nonsensical statments instead of ridiculing them?

originally posted by: quercusrex
a reply to: Lumenari

Only about 30% of US power generation comes from coal fired plants. It's mostly all natural gas plants now.

And that figure will improve. With the gasification of the coal looking to make the use of coal better, there are better ways than before. We can continue with coal for a while longer using the best available tech, and in so doing we can bridge the gap in time we need to create even more efficient devices.

New ideas every week this last year according to this :
news.energysage.com...

Regarding Safety.

The worlds largest battery is called called the Hornsdale Power Reserve. If you look it up on a map you'll see its in a field somewhere and is several kilometers from the nearest town. Also note that it's not a single battery cell, instead it's made up of thousands of 20700 cylindrical cells arranged in modules, arranged in power packs, arranged in the facility itself. Point is, a failure in one cell shouldn't propagate to the point to where the entire facility is on fire.

I would much rather live near an enormous battery, rather than near a facility that uses and consumes huge amounts of fossil fuels. Gas storage facilities can explode. Coal can catch fire and be difficult to extinguish.

And yes, electric vehicles can catch fire. However in every crash that I have seen a video of the battery slowly goes up in flames as each cell fails one after another and the fire slowly spreads throughout the pack. This can be an issue if occupants are trapped in the car or unconscious. However, there's videos of gasoline cars exploding on impact. The fact is automobiles require huge amounts of power and energy, which must be stored whether that is in a battery or a fuel tank. Uncontrolled release of that energy is dangerous.

I would be more concerned about home energy storage products, distributed in thousands of houses, going up in smoke.

The actual name of the facility is Hornsdale Power Reserve.

The stunning numbers behind success of Tesla big battery

The Tesla big battery in South Australia has already taken a 55 per cent share in the state’s frequency and ancillary services market, and lowered prices in that market by 90 per cent, new data has shown.

The stunning numbers on the economics of the country’s first utility-scale battery were presented at the Australian Energy Week conference in Melbourne on Thursday by McKinsey and Co partner Godart van Gendt.

Speaking as part of a panel on the leading technologies and strategies that will help manage the transition to renewables in Australia, van Gendt said the data was more evidence that battery storage would “play a very big role.”

He said that a lot of discussion around the success of the big battery – the biggest of its kind in the world, and delivered at break-neck speed – had focused on the fact that “we did it,” and not on the economics.

“So, I thought I’d give you a few numbers from the market data,” van Gendt said.

“In the first four months of operations of the Hornsdale Power Reserve (the official name of the Tesla big battery, owned and operated by Neoen), the frequency ancillary services prices went down by 90 per cent, so that’s 9-0 per cent.

“And the 100MW battery has achieved over 55 per cent of the FCAS revenues in South Australia. So it’s 2 per cent of the capacity in South Australia achieving 55 per cent of the revenues in South Australia.

“So that’s great for the first battery in the market,” he added, “but if you’ve already had 55 per cent of the FCAS that are now gone, right… and a 90 per cent drop in price, then the business case for the second battery, of course, is a bit less attractive.


reneweconomy.com.au...

1.1 Services provided by the Hornsdale Power Reserve

(snip)

1.1.1 Energy arbitrage

Under normal conditions, 30 MW of the battery’s discharge capacity is made available to NEOEN for commercial operation in the National Electricity Market (NEM). Of the battery’s total 129 MWh energy storage capacity, 119 MWh may be used for this mode of operation.

1.1.2 Reserve energy capacity

The remaining 70 MW of battery discharge capacity is reserved for power system reliability purposes. This 70 MW reserve capacity has not been dispatched to date. (snip)

1.1.3 Network loading control ancillary services (NLCAS)

(snip)

1.1.4 Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS)

(snip)

2.1.1 Quality of regulation FCAS delivery

Data available to AEMO demonstrates that the regulation FCAS provided by the HPR is both rapid and precise, compared to the service typically provided by a conventional synchronous generation unit. (snip)

www.aemo.com.au...

This battery has reduced FCAS prices by 90%. It was build in only a couple of months. And yet people complain about it.

a reply to: Forensick

There is no single power station in South Australia that could have prevented a blackout where generation was only 757 MW yet demand was 1826 MW. Why are batteries being held to these standards? And when coupled with all the changes from the 2016 SA blackout, the HPR would help significantly during a similar event.

a reply to: Lumenari

Not to mention if you own a Prius or hybrid then I guess you're quite fine with child slavery. Cobalt anyone?

It is a shame that some Cobalt is mined in these conditions. However that does not mean that most Cobalt is. Some Lithium Ion batteries don't even need Cobalt either.

Not to mention that if you are driving an all-electric car you are essentially subsidizing the coal industry, if you live in America. Where do you think the electricity from your house comes from?

If you're buying electricity generated by coal then you're not subsidizing the coal industry. The definition of a subsidy is:

a sum of money granted by the state or a public body to help an industry or business keep the price of a commodity or service low.

If you're buying electricity, then supply and demand. You would actually be increasing the price of coal.

Also America doesn't get its electricity from solely from coal. From Wiki, it's:

33.8% Natural Gas
30.4% Coal
19.7% Nuclear
6.5% Hydo
5.5% Wind
1.5% Biomass
2.6% Other

On topic, if Musk is so bedazzling smart, why not tie the battery to solar? Wind and Tidal are stupid inefficient.

Tesla owns Solar City. The Tesla Powerwall is to store solar power generated in the day, so it can be used when needed.


a reply to: lordcomac

iirc, a prius does more damage to the earth than a one ton pickup in it's serviceable lifespan. no links handy, just something I remember seeing... batteries are a nasty business.

This is incorrect, the only sources for this are long debunked.

The Wikipedia article is excellent:

en.wikipedia.org...

Plenty more sources:

www.ucsusa.org...

Only in few countries are electric vehicles as dirty as combustion vehicles because the electricity comes from coal. Australia is one of them. I can find the study if you like. In Australia, normal hybrids are actually the cleanest.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Yawn. Not only is this old “news” but it too late for his company. There are several technologies that blow his tech out of the water.

Flow batteries is the best one. Next is thermal energy storage. Then, energy generation will be more efficient. His whole battery factory will be passe when graphene batteries come out. It is a losing battle no matter what you feel about him. He is behind the curve.

Technologies at the research level are not a replacement for existing technologies. That's why they're being researched and not implemented. Not behind the curve on anything.

A little more information:

- Historical & projected cost for Lithium Ion batteries:


Source.

- The worlds biggest battery now has 10% of the Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) market in Australia.


Source.

- From the above report, the battery among new demand side response and lowered prices from competitors, has lowered the total cost of FCAS in Australia from $70 million per quarter to $25 million per quarter. And:

HPR also provided regulation FCAS to South Australia during the activation of the 35 MW FCAS constraint on 14 January and 8 March 2018. Historically, during the times that this constraint has bound, regulation FCAS prices in South Australia have typically exceeded $9,000/MWh due to the limited number of suppliers of these services in the region. However, on 14th January, HPR provided additional supply into FCAS regulation markets (Figure 20), and average Raise and Lower Regulation prices were $248/MWh during the event. AEMO estimates that this reduced the cost of regulation services by about $3.5 million during the five hour period in which the constraint bound.

In that example, the battery saved $3.5 million to the market operator in a period of 5 hours.

For more information on the grid and where this fits in, see my post here and corrections.


And thanks to Australian Electricity Market Operator (AEMO) for all the fantastic data & analysis.