Tesla is to supply New Zealand with the same battery tech it has installed in South Australia as an antipodean battle of the batteries hots up.
New Zealand’s majority state-owned electricity generator, Mercury NZ, has selected Tesla to provide the battery for what it said will be the country’s “first” national grid connected battery trial.
The initiative follows a raft of storage projects and proposals announced in Australia in recent months— with states seemingly determined to compete in the battery stakes.
And the Mercury project comes hot on the heels of a report by national grid owner-operator, Transpower, which said energy storage systems could represent an economic “game-changer” for New Zealand within the next few years.
Mercury is investing more than NZD2 million ($1.5m) in the 1MW/ 2MWh project designed to study the impact of integrating battery technology with the national electricity system.
Tesla will install Powerpack 2 batteries for the initiative in South Auckland— as it has done for energy storage projects in South Australia and Southern California.
Tesla’s batteries are expected to go online in New Zealand by August this year, Mercury said.
Mercury chief executive Fraser Whineray said: “Technologies like battery storage have the potential to complement our country’s energy system as it supports moves towards greater sustainability across the building, transport and agriculture sectors.”
The Winter issue of BEST— out now— reports on fears that the 100MW Tesla battery in South Australia could fail to live up to expectations because of a host of other issues including a fragmented regulatory environment and creaking infrastructure.
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