What started out as a funny Twitter comment from Elon Musk last year soon resulted in the world’s highest output lithium-ion battery plant by Tesla in Australia. Now, both Elon Musk and Tesla have a reputation for achieving a lot of ‘firsts’ in the world so we weren’t shocked with the word’s most powerful battery plant. The top spot though doesn’t seem to be sticking around to long with Tesla if some recent reports are to be believed, Interestingly, the stake to the throne is being made by an Indian-born British businessman Sanjeev Gupta. More interestingly, his challenge to Tesla’s Australian plant will fructify in Australia.
Tesla’s battery plant presently has a peak storage capacity of 100MW/129MWH, which is quite a lot in literal terms. The plant, since December 2017, has made significant contributions to the power grid of South Australia and has helped reduce the occurrence and scope of blackouts. Gupta’s plant, however, is targeting a significantly higher power capacity of 120MW/140MWH, giving it an edge over Tesla.
Gupta’s plant will be built close to Adelaide, at a site bought by the Indian-born businessman’s Liberty House last year. The site housed a steelworks factory earlier.
The project is being partially funded by the South Australian government in the form of a $7.8 million loan for the battery manufacturing. The battery will be powered by a 200-megawatt solar farm and will be set up by Simic Zen Energy, Gupta’s GFG Alliance firm. Once completed, the plant will help the local power grid to further improve the electricity supply stability. The plant at its capacity is expected to create about 100 jobs and the announcement of this project came on the last day of campaigning before the elections on Saturday, 17 March.
While it’s nice to see an Indian-born businessman putting up a challenge to a smart company such as Tesla, the key takeaway here is something else. The world today is at a critical point from where energy creation and mobility are set to undergo a transformation. With an increasing focus on renewable energy sources, the next Middle East could be anywhere that has the highest concentration of people and companies focusing on massive renewable energy projects. The right time to invest in the future is now.
