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Giant scale battery showcases

The biggest battery bank experiments are in California and Australia

The world’s largest lithium-ion battery energy storage system is connected into San Diego Gas & Electric’s grid network in California. It was brought online in January this year as a showcase demonstration project to “enhance regional energy reliability while maximising renewable energy use,” says SDG&E.

The system can provide bursts of power to stabilise the grid and can also meet a proportion of bulk power needs during evening spikes in demand. The batteries are charged during periods of plentiful supply, which can be at times of peak solar generation in the middle of the day.

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The system consists of 400,000 batteries grouped in 20,000 modules placed in 24 shipping-scale containers. The batteries have a combined capacity of 30 MW, equal to ten typical modern wind turbines. They can store up to 120 MWh of energy, enough to meet the demand of 20,000 of SDG&E’s customers, should the stored electricity be used for that purpose, but only for four hours.

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The project is one of three battery storage experiments expedited in a hurry by California governor Jerry Brown after leaks at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in 2016 caused severe electricity supply disturbances, leading to a declared state of emergency. The other two battery systems each have a capacity of 20 MW. All three were installed by Tesla, Greensmith Energy and AES Energy Storage in a combined effort.

“Experience with these large scale battery installations on the grid will teach us much about how they could and should be used,” says George Crabtree, energy storage research director at the United States Argonne National Laboratory.

A 100 MW li-ion battery storage system offering 129 MWh of storage capacity is up next and is currently being installed in Australia. Tesla won an invitation issued by the South Australia government in July for supply of 100 MW of battery storage. Tesla received a purchase contract in September for energy delivered from the battery bank. Renewable energy makes up 43% of the state’s 5.3 GW of generating capacity with gas and liquid thermal making up the remaining 57%, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.

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TEXT Henrik Bendix ILLUSTRATIONHvass & Hannibal