https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/27/1st-year-income-from-tesla-battery-in-south...

Lots of opponents of battery storage for electricity that has been generated by wind, solar, and other renewables like to focus on how much those systems cost. Take the Hornsdale battery installed by Tesla last year in South Australia. It cost $66 million, and to hear some folks in Australia tell it, that money will place a huge burden on local utility customers forever. They conveniently forget to mention that the battery is a source of income to Neoen, the French company that owns it and the adjacent wind farm.
According to The Guardian, Neoen will recover more than one third of the $66 million cost of the Hornsdale battery in its first year of operation. A return on investment of three years is remarkable and something that should make other utility companies sit up and take notice. The payback time for most of their generating plants and infrastructure is usually measured in decades, not a few years.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-batter...

SO this has stabilized the grid in SA and has been making lots of money.

If it keeps making that money in its 10 year life it will make 230million , and also 233% profit on cost, not really a tombstone.
There was so much crap about it being useless a year ago and turns out its profitable and very helpful to SA's grid

DonDeeHippy wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 8:54am:



They earn income from the batteries when not required?

I wonder who pays for that?

DonDeeHippy wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 5:25pm:



yes but it is only used when the power drops.

DonDeeHippy wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 5:25pm:



Perhaps. You would need to provide figures to prove that.

Johnnie wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 5:40pm:



That's what the batteries were for to cater for the intermittence of solar and wind plus other power dropouts.

"There are a range of methods and technologies to store energy. This can include batteries, flywheels, compressed air, thermal and pumped hydro. Learn more about energy storage.

Coupling energy storage with renewable energy provides stability services and emergency back-up power if a shortfall in energy is predicted. This helps overcome intermittent power generation (i.e. solar power is only generated when the sun shines), and can provide energy when it is needed."

http://www.renewablessa.sa.gov.au/topic/large-scale-generation-storage/energy-st...

If the SA Government says it, I guess it is true.

Johnnie wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 5:59pm:


Since the interconnector failed Hazlewood has closed. Also the transmission line/wind farm failure. That puts extra stresses on the grid.

Johnnie wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 5:59pm:



I am not selling them as a "fix"; as you pointed out there is too little backup to provide a solution for long term downtime.

"Industry analyst Giles Parkinson, who runs renewable advocacy website Renew Economy, said the figure was within expectations."

""The information that was released by Neoen a couple of days ago… makes it very clear the previous government's implementation and delivery of the battery was incredibly messy and overly expensive," Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan told ABC Radio Adelaide.

"It actually costs taxpayers' money. There's a cost of $4-5 million a year to have the battery in place.

"There are more costs than that involved.

    "The government of the day before the last election did not share all of the costs and all of the information."

However, Giles Parkinson said the battery was on track to "make revenues of about $25-26 million in its first year".

"We don't know what the profit margin of that is but we can probably estimate it's a fair profit margin," he said."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-27/tesla-battery-cost-revealed-two-years-afte...

lee wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 6:20pm:

And my lights are on, are yours.

lee wrote on Sep 30^th, 2018 at 6:31pm:

Its a mix and it has to be for now, I am probably getting a lot of my power from the windy mills on Yorke Peninsular at the moment, you also would be benefiting from this if you are on the main grid.