108 | theceomagazine.com
THE BIGGEST
BATTERY EVER
TESLA’S NEW WORLD-
RECORD PROJECT IN SOUTH
AUSTRALIA IS A 129MWH
BATTERY IN JAMESTOWN,
A TOWN WITH FEWER THAN
1,500 PEOPLE, JUST OVER
190 KILOMETRES NORTH
OF ADELAIDE.STORING POWER
John Wood, chief executive of energy storage business
Ecoult, heads up one of the firms at the vanguard of the
emerging battery power storage market.
Australian-based Ecoult – originally a subsidiary of
the country’s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation) – is currently
commercialising its offering called the UltraBattery,
which adds a supercapacitor to existing lead–acid
battery technology.
According to Wood, recent progress in battery
technology, especially in their capacity to operate more
efficiently in a state of partial charge, has transformed
them into viable energy storage options for advanced
economies as well as for developing regions like India,
Africa and South East Asia.
Used in conjunction with solar panels or diesel
generators, Wood says battery storage can significantly
cut power bills by taking homes and businesses off an
existing power grid and onto their own ‘micro grids’.
“People are concerned about the cost of electricity
and its reliability and they see that energy storage using
batteries complements renewables. Storage has
managed to get itself recognised for the contribution
it can make,” Wood says.
“It’s no use paying, say, 42 cents a kilowatt hour
for retail electricity but then getting paid six cents for
putting your own electricity back out on the grid – it’s
better to put it in a battery, shift it in time, and use it
when you need it.”HIGH-PROFILE PROJECTS
Some of the biggest names in business are already on
board. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, for
instance, has developed his own energy storage unit
known as Powerwall, which has been rolled out to
homes across the globe.
Similar to Ecoult’s offering, Powerwall is a reusable
battery charged from power generated via solar panels.
The unit, which currently retails for around US$8,000
(including installation), saves money for users as it
enables them to store excess electricity generated in
the day for use at night, instead of purchasing power
back from the grid.
Puerto Rico is one nation already benefiting
from the breakthrough technology. After severe
hurricanes devastated the Caribbean nation’s power
grid in 2017, Tesla’s batteries and solar panels were
deployed to build micro grids around the island,
including at its main hospital, to keep essential
healthcare services available for the nation’s
3.5 million power-starved residents.
Musk is not stopping with Powerwall. So bullish
is the billionaire about the potential of battery storage
that he has built the world’s most powerful lithium
ion battery in South Australia to assist the state’s