Elon Musk says Tesla is building the largest battery system in the world within 100 days — or it's free

• Tesla is set to build the world's largest lithium-ion battery storage project in South Australia.
• Billionaire founder Elon Musk said the project will be completed within 100 days or it will be free.
• South Australia has had major electricity issues since storms have destroyed key infrastructure.

"In less than 24 hours we had to make up our mind whether we wanted it or not," Paul said.

"Very fast, unbelievably quick actually, but I suppose they've only got a certain time to do it."

With little time to decide for or against the decision, their concerns about the 100-megawatt battery were all about location.

"You don't want to stand in the way of progress but we don't want it where it's going to be a nuisance for the rest of our life either," Paul said.

"We had to make quick decisions but also wanted to see where it was going to go before we signed anything.

"And we were happy where they were putting it."

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-08/sheep-graziers-given-one-day-to-de...

Ketan Joshi

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Wednesday 12 July 201712.10 AESTLast modified on Wednesday 12 July 201712.42 AEST

The Australian electricity grid’s most recently announced extremity is a gargantuan battery system in South Australia, designed to bolster grid security. The facility has been met mostly with a warm welcome, interspersed with weird, interesting and tense hostility. Buried in the mix of reactions are clues about how a new phase of grid transition might play out, as we switch from the rapid build out of zero carbon power sources to building and integrating them into a system designed for fossil fuels.

Before we interrogate the misunderstandings of South Australia’s new battery, we have to step back and look at the system as a single, electric organism.

The National Electricity Market (NEM) (Western Australia is excluded – it’s made up several smaller grids) is long, thin and connected by a web of wires. It’s Australia’s biggest machine. Within the bowels of this machine, every millisecond, a balance is struck between power generated and power consumed. When a big chunk of either disappears suddenly, like several voltage-tripped wind farms did in response to fallen power line last September, the balance (frequency) is thrown off. If this balance veers too dramatically outside a safe operating envelope, the grid shudders to a halt.

The Australian Energy Market Operator, Aemo, sits at the helm of Australia’s biggest machine, pulling many thousands of levers to keep frequency – the fine balance of supply and demand – within an acceptable band. They monitor how fast frequency changes, and they use a variety of tools to wrestle it back into the safe envelope when they spy it heading out of the safe zone. In addition to millisecond frequency changes, Aemo works at an hourly level, ensuring supply meets demand – managing plant availability and resource availability (using wind and solar forecasts, and hydro reserve levels).

In the even-longer-term, policymakers and regulators have to start planning for the looming retirement of Australia’s ageing, increasingly obsolete generation technology. This trio of timescales underpinning grid security is neatly summarised in this Bloomberg graphic, outlining how renewable energy necessitates a more complex management of grid security:

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/12/commentators-who-d...

Providence, Rhode Island: Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has warned a bipartisan gathering of US governors that government regulation of artificial intelligence is needed because it poses a "fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation".

But first, he asked for some governors to lift a different kind of regulation: state franchise dealership laws that ban the direct sale of his company's electric cars to consumers.

Read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/be-extremely-afraid-elon-musk-has-a-grim-war...

The groundwork for the world’s nerdiest fight was laid by Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, earlier this month, when he pushed again for the proactive regulation of artificial intelligence because he believes it poses a “fundamental risk to the existence of civilization”. Musk, who has been issuing warnings like these for years now, is concerned that humans will become second-class citizens in a future dominated by artificial intelligence – or that we’ll face a Terminator-style robot uprising.

Enter Zuckerberg, who on Sunday denounced these types of warnings as “pretty irresponsible”.

Zuckerberg made the comments while taking questions during a Facebook Live broadcast from his Palo Alto home. One viewer asked: “I watched a recent interview with Elon Musk and his largest fear for the future was AI. What are your thoughts on AI and how could it affect the world?”

In an uncharacteristically candid response, Zuckerberg said: “I have pretty strong opinions on this. I am optimistic. And I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios – I just, I don’t understand it. It’s really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible.”

Zuckerberg believes that AI will have much less dystopian applications, and will be responsible for saving lives through disease diagnosis and by powering driverless cars.

“One of the top causes of death for people is car accidents, still, and if you can eliminate that with AI, that is going to be just a dramatic improvement,” he said.

A day later, Musk had a comeback on Twitter: “I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited.”

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/25/elon-musk-mark-zucker...

Having done and still doing a lot of work on "Artificial Intelligence", Gus can advise that both are right. Gus sees the necessity of developing AI in order to improve humans ability to "save them from themselves". At this stage for example we could do worse than having an AI US President to replace ningnong Trump. But the danger with AI is that like all human endeavours, it can be programmed for maximum good or for lunacy. The prognosis at the moment is that most programming of Artificial intelligence is "intelligently done" in favour of protecting the planet from our excesses.

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33702 

The world’s largest lithium-ion battery has officially been turned on in South Australiapromising to usher in a revolution in how electricity is produced and stored.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has made good on his promise to build the 100-megawatt facility on deadline or provide it free after blackouts last year that critics of the state’s Labor government blamed on pro-renewable policies.

The battery had begun dispatching some power into the state’s electricity network on Thursday afternoon as temperatures rose above 30C.

The state’s premier, Jay Weatherill, flicked the switch at Jamestown on Friday, saying it was history in the making. “I want to express my gratitude to the workers who have constructed this battery, they have every right to be proud of what they have constructed,” he said in a statement.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/01/south-australia-t...

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ADELAIDE, Australia — The state of South Australia announced on Friday that it had powered up the world’s biggest battery ahead of schedule: a feat already being heralded as one of this century’s first great engineering marvels and a potential solution to the country’s energy woes.

The battery is the size of an American football field. It is capable of powering 30,000 homes, and its rapid deployment reflects the union of a blackout-prone state and a flashy entrepreneur, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, who pledged to complete its construction in 100 days or do it for free.

“This is history in the making,” said Jay Weatherill, the premier of South Australia. In a statement, Tesla said the completed battery “shows that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible.”

Debate over the battery’s potential has become intense. Federal lawmakers who favor fossil fuels argue that its impact is being exaggerated, while supporters gush that the state’s embrace of Mr. Musk could change the future of energy in Australia — and the world.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/australia/elon-musk-south-australia-battery.html

More of these and electric cars can be run on solar and wind...

At least 50,000 homes in SA will be given solar panels and batteries in a scheme by Elon Musk's Tesla and the SA Government to build the world's largest virtual power plant, slashing household power bills in the process.

Under the deal unveiled by Premier Jay Weatherill ahead of the March state election, solar systems and batteries will be supplied and installed free of charge.

The cost of the project will be financed through the sale of electricity, generated by the panels, in what Mr Weatherill said would be the largest project of its kind.

The Government will this week issue an expression of interest for a retailer to deliver the program, with the intention of bringing additional competition to the market.

The retailer will have the right to tap output of the household batteries and solar panels to supply power into the grid.

A trial of the scheme in 1,100 Housing Trust properties has already begun.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-04/elon-musk-tesla-to-give-solar-pane...

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — After facing early failures and skeptical attitudes, SpaceX has disrupted the business of launching rockets into space by combining cut-rate prices with the routine recovery of used rocket boosters. On Tuesday, the company, founded by Elon Musk, hopes to achieve a new milestone with a successful test launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which would be the most powerful rocket in operation in the world today.

Mr. Musk’s ultimate goal — sending people to Mars — requires inventing businesses and profits that do not exist today. He also may be angling for the federal government to help pay his way.

Whatever the case, the Falcon Heavy is SpaceX’s next step in aiming beyond the existing launch business and demonstrating that it can do more than place communications satellites in orbit and haul cargo for NASA to the International Space Station.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/science/falcon-heavy-spacex-launch.html?

The world's biggest lithium-ion battery — built by tech billionaire Elon Musk's company Tesla last year — has survived its first summer in South Australia's mid-north.

• AEMO says the Hornsdale Power Reserve is capable of charging at a rate of 80 megawatts and discharging at 100 megawatts
• It has a storage capacity of 129 megawatt hours
• That means it could operate for about 75 minutes at full capacity

And according to a new report by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), it's outperforming coal and gas generators on some key measures.

Here's a look at how it's performed and its potential impact on the future of power in Australia.

In September 2016, South Australia was plunged into darkness when storms tore through transmission lines.

The faults in the transmission system prompted several wind farms to unexpectedly power down. 

With that sudden loss of generation, South Australia immediately began drawing more power across the interconnector to Victoria, which overloaded and switched off.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-06/tesla-battery-outperforms-coal-and...

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The French renewable energy company Neoen, which owns the battery, filed for IPO listing on the French stock exchange this month.

A 400-page document filed in support of the application shows the battery, which is the largest lithium-ion battery in the world, had a capital cost of €56m or A$90.6m and generated €8.1m, or A$13.1m, in revenue from network services in the six months to 30 June 2018.

Almost $2m of that was from its 10-year contract with the SA government to provide reserve capacity for the state’s electricity network, which is worth $4m a year.

The rest was from trading on the frequency and ancillary services market.

It also made €6.7m, or A$10.8, from the sale of stored electricity.

The document does not state the project’s profit margins.

The SA government contract is for 70MW of capacity and a small amount of storage, leaving 30MW and the bulk of the battery’s storage capacity available to sell on the national energy market.

Dylan McConnell, from the Australian-German Climate and Energy College, said the financial returns were above the already high expectations for the project, but as more battery projects came online the rate of revenue growth could be expected to slow.

“There’s a finite need for these ancillary services,” he said. “They are very important resources but it’s quite a small market in the scheme of things.”

Neoen has several storage projects under way, including a 20MW battery attached to the proposed 194MW windfarm at the Bulgana green power hub in Victoria, 90% of which is contracted to the Victorian government.

It is also proposing a 50MW storage facility in Kaban, in Queensland.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesl...

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Note: the Snowy Hydro 2.0 is penned for providing 2000 MW... which means that 3000 MW have to be acquired from solar panels and wind turbine in offpeak mode to pump the water upwards before Snowy 2.0 can delivers the 2000 MW, OTHERWISE THE PROJECT WOULD NOT MAKE SENSE should it use gas or coal energy to pump the water up. Where will you find 3,000 MW green energy? I know! Have more solar panels and more wind turbines... Ah I see! Very sneaky Mr Malcolm...