MELBOURNE — The Australian state of Victoria has announced that a massive 300-megawatt battery will be built in partnership with Tesla and French renewable energy company Neoen.
The facility will help stabilize the local grid as use of renewable energy increases, the state's premier said in a press release.
New Atlas reports the Victorian Big Battery will be built near Geelong — roughly 70 kilometers or 43 miles southwest of Melbourne.
It is expected to provide surge capabilities up to 300 megawatts and 450 megawatt-hours of energy storage.
It would be triple the size of the original 100-megawatt Tesla facility built at Neoen's site in Hornsdale, South Australia, which was the largest in the world when it began operations in 2017 and has since been upsized to 150 megawatts.
Geelong is ideally situated near a number of wind farms and solar installations, as well as transmission lines linking much of the state and national power grid.
Tesla's Autobidder software will make real-time decisions on where to distribute electricity.
This Big Battery will deal with load spikes, allowing for coal-fired power plants to be run at more reliable levels of output.
The Victoria government says it will also help the state reach its renewable energy objective of 50 percent by 2030.
The state says the battery will also help lower electricity prices by storing renewable energy, as wind farms and solar installations do not always produce energy exactly when it is needed.