It looks like Elon Musk and the team at Tesla are not happy with the Australia energy operators over their metering of energy being supplied from their battery farm. Tesla is complaining the batteries are too fast for the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to correctly meter.
The current metering standards being used by AEMO are based on the response rates for fossil fuel generators. However, the Tesla batteries respond much faster.
“Tesla estimates that the Hornsdale Power Reserve battery has delivered 30 – 40 percent of its services to frequency markets without being paid due to existing AEMO technical specifications being written based on fossil fuel generation assets,” said Tesla.
Tesla’s South Australia battery farm began operating last December, and it has so far never disappointed; if anything it has surpassed expectations. Come January 2018, AEMO asked the power generator to connect to the national grid to supply power in the event of a nationwide blackout or during routine maintenance.
Typically, when there are power blackouts in Australia, the cost of supplying power to the national grid using alternative means is usually exorbitantly high. With Tesla’s backup solution in addition to a wind farm, the cost has been significantly driven down. Other means of backup was costing AU$9,000/MW while the Tesla plus wind farm generators dropped the charges down to AU$270/MW.
Tesla batteries are also in use in other parts of the world including Puerto Rico, Vermont, Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, and Ta’u Island. They are also being incorporated in a pilot program in Canada where they are testing hybrid of battery and wind power.