Musk’s electrifying Twitter promise to Australia is only half right
Elon Musk’s offer to install a 100MWh energy-storage plant within 100 days is doable, but arbitrage trade is as volatile as electricity demand
Sydney — Deals hatched over Twitter generally don’t work out that well. Elon Musk might have found an exception. Last week, the Tesla CEO promised Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes that he could install a 100-megawatt-hour (MWh) energy-storage plant within 100 days at a battery-pack price of $250 a kilowatt hour (kWh). That would help balance out the unstable local grid in South Australia state, where spot wholesale electricity prices over the past two months have risen as high as $13,440/MWh and dropped as low as minus $146.29/MWh. If that sounds like science fiction, blame the speed at which the lithium-ion battery market is developing. The logistical challenge has already been more or less solved. Last year, Tesla installed an 80MWh system in California in just over three months. A 100MWh system in 100 days is more of a stretch, but not by much. Musk’s magic number: 100 What about that $250/kWh price? Anyone with a vague sense that large-scale lithium-ion battery packs wer...
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