As Tesla races to deliver its grid and wind farm-connected 129MWh lithium-ion battery in time for South Australia’s coming summer, a much smaller-scale version of some of the same technology is set to be switched on at a salt manufacturing facility across the Tasman, on New Zealand’s South Island.
NZ utility business Vector Energy Solutions said on Monday that a 250kW/570kWh Tesla Powerpack would soon be switched on at Dominion Salt’s Lake Grassmere works, to store and smooth energy from the already installed 660kW wind turbine.
Integration of the wind turbine and Tesla battery storage system – believed to be an Australasian first – is expected to meet around 75 per cent of the site’s energy needs, minimising its use of the grid, and maximising security of supply in a region susceptible to earthquakes.
“We contacted Vector because we decided that battery storage was critical to our energy needs,” said Dominion Salt CEO Shane Dufaur.
“It’s incredibly important to have security of supply for the overall sustainability of the business. Given out location and the recent seismic events, we need to make sure that we’re not reliant 100 per cent on the grid.
“Vector produced a design that incorporates our renewable energy sources, the lake system and the plants, to optimise our uses of energy. Very importantly, it includes our 660kW wind turbine,” Dufaur said.
Vector Energy Solutions connects Tesla Powerpack to wind turbine from Vector Ltd on Vimeo.
“The solution Vector has created for Dominion Salt provides sustainability and resilience benefits to the salt producer,” said Vector’s group general manager for development, Brian Ryan.
“The Tesla Powerpack will help with peak shaving and load management while ‘firming or smoothing’ the often-intermittent energy generated by wind turbines.
“The addition of a 250kW battery storage system, storing up to 570kW-hours of energy, will allow Dominion Salt to maximise the use of its wind turbine and store any excess generation for use at other times,” he said.
“The control system, built specifically for Dominion Salt, will be remotely monitored, 24/7, to ensure it’s running optimally.”
Ryan said the new wind and battery system – at the intersection of technology and sustainability – offered viable alternatives to businesses with both green and commercial benefits.
He said Vector was pursuing other opportunities in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands to deploy both on-grid and off-grid battery storage systems.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
This post was published on August 7, 2017 2:29 pm
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Sorry but what you need to minimise use of the grid is much more energy storage capacity, like 5 hours times wind capacity, which here means 5 hours x 660kw = 3,300 kWh and so a mere " 570kWh" is severely under capacity. Even with the recommended 3,300 kWh the system would still need to depend on about 100kW of back-up power, possibly from the grid, to guarantee 250 kW power on demand.
Consult the Wind, storage and back-up system designer at this link
http://scottish.scienceontheweb.net/Wind%20power%20storage%20back-up%20calculator.htm?wind=660&units=kw or read the table here.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1ce987fcfa007b475685c70ef906e4e5a9b80738ca6e2a3a356a934c307264a.jpg
Peak demand, wind and back-up power / energy usage and storage capacity calculator
For the specification and design of renewable energy electricity generation systems which successfully smooth intermittent wind generation to serve customer demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year.
Adopting the recommendation derived from scientific computer modelling that the energy storage capacity be about 5 hours times the wind power capacity, the tables offer rows of previously successful modelled system configurations - row A, a configuration with no back-up power and rows B to G offering alternative ratios of wind power to back-up power. Columns consist of adjustable power and energy values in proportion to fixed multiplier factors.
Scottish Scientist
Independent Scientific Adviser for Scotland
https://scottishscientist.wordpress.com/
* Wind, storage and back-up system designer
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* Modelling of wind and pumped-storage power
* Scotland Electricity Generation – my plan for 2020
* South America – GREAT for Renewable Energy
All these Telsa customers are going to feel cheated when their batteries run flat time after time.
The Elon is a busy boy, yes. Big Battery in NZ, Big Battery for SA, Tesla Cars churning out, Rocket to Mars.....what else is there?
More and more business customers will see the benefits of a combined strategy of energy efficiency, local renewables and peak electricity cost avoidance. To boot the maximum demand and power factor charges avoidance are a bonus.
The challenge with all these systems are the management and optimization algorithms, we are going to need a lot of 21st century engineers and mathematicians.