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.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
RSS