Tesla is secretly building a giant 100 MW battery in Texas

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Tesla is best known as an electric car company, but the firm also has a thriving business in battery storage—including utility-scale battery installations to support the electric grid. Bloomberg reports that Tesla is currently building a battery installation in Tesla CEO Elon Musk's new home state of Texas. The project is in Angleton, about an hour south of Houston.

Tesla hasn't publicized the project, which is operating under the name of an obscure Tesla subsidiary called Gambit Energy Storage LLC. When a Bloomberg photographer visited, a worker discouraged picture-taking and said the project was "secretive." The project appears to consist of 20 large banks of batteries that have been covered by white sheets.

A document on the city of Angleton's website provides some details about the project. It's listed as being a project of Plus Power but includes a photo of a Tesla battery cabinet. Plus Power counts two former Tesla employees among its executives. Plus confirmed to Bloomberg that it had started the project, then sold it to an undisclosed party.

The installation will use lithium iron phosphate batteries that are expected to last 10 to 20 years. The document says that it will generate around $1 million in property tax revenue for the city of Angleton. The site will be unmanned but will be remotely monitored at all times, according to the document.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/report-tesla-is-secretly-building-a-giant-100-mw-battery-in-texas/

[Ocelot II]

1. I guess it's not secret any more.

[ananda]

2. Is this a viable solution to Texas' energy woes?

???

[AZSkiffyGeek]

3. Or a way for Elon Musk to grift off it? nt

[Miguelito Loveless]

5. How is making the Texas grid

more resilient, a "grift"?

[ananda]

11. It depends on "who" profits and by how much...

and one owner? In Texas?

Pleeze

[Miguelito Loveless]

16. Musk doesn't own the power plant in Australia

and he built it at cost to prove that it could in fact be done, and that the economics of renewables worked.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

14. We're talking about a person who wants to fly indentured servants to his Mars colony

I'm sure he's got a way to bilk Texas consumers.

[Miguelito Loveless]

15. You seem to be mistaking humor

Last edited Wed Mar 10, 2021, 09:50 AM - Edit history (1)

and satire for fact. Musk's humor is not for everyone.

But, let's assume he is serious for half a second. How is that any different than the current economic system in the US? Indentured servitude and debtor's prison may have been outlawed de jure, but it pretty much exists de facto.

Clarification (Because in retrospect that is rife for obvious misinterpretation, my error entirely):

I do NOT endorse indentured servitude under any circumstances, even when we pretty it up and call it "college loans". We certainly need to eliminate wage slavery on this planet before we attempt to go to another.

That said, I don't care much about Musk's plans for Mars, since I am highly skeptical we are going to get there for about a dozen reasons, starting with humans being able to travel that distance in hard radiation and microgravity without adverse health effects. What I do care about is the technology being developed on Earth for his obsession which greatly improves our chances of meaningful transition away from oil/gas/coal.

Musk can be a royal dick, but that doesn't make his contributions to the electrification of transportation, battery tech, solar energy, aerospace, and satellite communications any less valuable.

My original response is snarky, and for that I apologize.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

17. Okay...

[ananda]

10. Yeah, it makes me wonder too.

...

[lagomorph777]

4. It could help. Mass storage will be a key part of expanding renewables.

[Miguelito Loveless]

7. Agreed

Or rooftop solar and smaller packs on individual homes configured as "virtual power plants".

[lagomorph777]

8. Yup. I'll bet many Texans wish they had off-grid capability.

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. It is a start

But they need lots more of these type of facilities.

[MineralMan]

9. Most likely it's a "proof of concept" facility.

They build it, connect it to the grid and see how it works before scaling it up elsewhere.

They're not talking about it, because it's a test project.

[AllaN01Bear]

12. i dont care for him since he left california.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

18. Texas' government is full of COVID deniers, so he fits in pretty well there... nt

[Klaralven]

13. A 100 MWatt-hour battery is tiny compared with Texas generation.

Back in 2017, we covered Tesla's construction of a massive battery installation in South Australia. At the time, the 100 MW system was the largest in the world. According to Bloomberg, the new Texas battery system will be at least as big.

In the long run, massive battery facilities will be needed to shift intermittent solar and wind power in time. But a lot of battery installations today don't have enough capacity to do much of this. Tesla's South Australia battery, for example, only had enough capacity to supply power for a little over an hour at its full 100 MW power level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Texas