Tesla’s Solar Plus Storage Power Plant in Hawaii

Not only has solar energy come of age as a big competitor to fossil fuels in the areas of electricity power but energy storage too is starting to make a mark. Tesla which is set to become the world’s largest producer of lithium batteries recently launched a giant solar plus storage utility scale power plant in Hawaii. The company is going to sell power from the facility on a 24/7 basis at just 13.9 cents/kWh. This is incredible since it means that all islands globally will find it cheaper to use solar plus storage going forward. Most islands use oil or diesel to provide power to its residents since these places to do not have coal or gas resources. They also generally do not have hydro or nuclear generating power plants due to lack of scale and resources.

Even diesel has to be imported from the mainland which further raises the costs of generating power. This means that power cost of islands is nearly to 15-20 cents/kWh. Power is also not that reliable in times of storms or bad weathers which frequently hit islands, the diesel stops coming to these islands from ocean transports.

Telsa is using its Powerpack lithium ion battery power packs to power almost 52 mwh of energy storage backup. Note both Tesla and AES have already installed large energy storage farms in California and now Hawaii has joined the cutting edge of utility scale energy storage.

It is not over for Hawaii with this solar plus storage facility but it also plans to build solar-plus-battery storage project – 28 MW and  20 MW five-hour duration energy storage system on the island’s South shore, with energy storage giant AES.