Tesla Motors Inc. will supply 20 megawatts of energy storage to Southern California Edison as part of a wider effort to prevent blackouts by replacing fossil-fuel electricity generation with lithium-ion batteries. Of course, that’s a tiny fraction of the millions of households served by Southern California Edison, and a slightly awkward metric for a project meant to provide peak backup, not a primary power source.
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Computerworld reports that, after the worst methane gas leak in US history left companies supplying California utilities desperate for new energy backup resources, Tesla has just been awarded its largest contract to date. Southern California is a notoriously hard market for energy companies, and thus, a great testing ground for Tesla’s ideas. Powers said Tesla’s battery project highlights that there are other solutions to meeting the energy needs of Southern Californians.
The California Public Utilities Commission in 2013 asked that three utilities companies, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric, install 1,325 gigawatts of storage capacity over the next eight years. Now it wants to help power cities during peak times, by building giant battery facilities. This will be the “largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world”, Tesla says, assuming it’s fully operational by its coming deadline of December 31, 2016.
With all the buzz about Tesla’s vehicle offerings, it is easy to forget that the brand has a blossoming energy storage business. The Texas methane leak occurred when a natural gas storage facility collapsed, but a subsequent fire turned much of the escaping methane into carbon dioxide as it burned up. Jerry Brown issued a state of emergency, the Aliso Canyon facility was shut down. Unlike traditional electric generators, batteries can be deployed quickly at scale and do not require any water or gas pipelines.
The Aliso Canyon facility had been feeding the network of natural gas “peaker” power plants in the Los Angeles basin.
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With the announcement that electric vehicle maker, Tesla Motors, was set to swallow up SolarCity, it became obvious that Tesla was looking to do more than make cheap, environmentally friendly cars. The electric power industry is the last great industry which has not seen the revolutionary effects of storage.
