Neoen SA yesterday said that it is to partner with Tesla Inc to install one of the world’s biggest lithium-ion batteries in Australia after reaching a grid connection deal with the power market operator.
The 300 megawatt Victorian Big Battery is planned for Geelong in Victoria state and use Tesla’s Megapack technology.
It would be double the size of Neoen’s Hornsdale site in South Australia state, which was the largest facility when it began operations in 2017.
Photo: Reuters
Installing the new system in Australia’s second-most populous state would help to modernize and stabilize the local grid, which is targeting 50 percent of its power to come from renewable sources by 2030, Neoen said in a media release.
The Paris-based company is targeting the battery to be operational by the end of next year.
Battery storage technology is being deployed on an ever-growing scale to meet demand to back-up the surge in wind and solar power generation.
About US$951 billion would be invested in the technology through 2050, with two-thirds deployed on utility-scale systems, BloombergNEF forecasts showed.
Tesla is seeing rising demand for grid-scale batteries and the new Australian project would offer further evidence that the systems are suitable to back up intermittent wind and solar power, Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm told a webinar.
“What we’re seeing is many energy operators around the world don’t want to renew their fossil fuel-type turbines, they want to put storage in, they want to harness renewable energy,” Denholm said.
Tesla founder Elon Musk has previously said that the firm’s energy business could one day rival its electric vehicle division in size.
Neoen’s Hornsdale lost its status as the world’s biggest storage battery to a facility near San Diego, California, which began operations this year. Several other larger battery projects are planned, including in the US and China, BloombergNEF data show.
“The big battery will help protect our network in summer, create jobs and drive down energy prices, as well as supporting our recovery from the coronavirus pandemic,” Victoria Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio said in a separate statement.
The new project in Victoria would be supported by a 250 megawatt grid services contract with the Australian Energy Market Operator and would also partner with network provider AusNet Services, Neoen said.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
RSS