Tesla joins effort to pair batteries with offshore wind

The Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind farm, was built by Deepwater Wind and began operating in 2016. Source: Climate Central

Climate Central

Tesla and wind farm developer Deepwater Wind are planning to team up to create the largest project in the world that combines an offshore wind farm with large-scale electricity storage, the companies announced Tuesday.

The project, called the Revolution Wind Farm, would generate electricity about 12 miles off the shore of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and store some of it in large batteries built by Tesla.

The project would have the capacity to generate 144 megawatts of wind power, or enough electricity to power 80,000 homes, according to Deepwater Wind.

The Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind farm, was built by Deepwater Wind and began operating in 2016. Source: Climate Central
The Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind farm, was built by Deepwater Wind and began operating in 2016. Source: Climate Central

If approved by the state, the wind farm would begin operating in 2023. It is expected to be built next to another wind farm proposed by Deepwater Wind called the South Fork Wind Project.

That project would serve Long Island, New York.

The companies proposed Revolution Wind as part of a call in Massachusetts for new sources of renewable energy across the state.

The state hopes to generate more clean energy to meet its climate goals by cutting the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Electric power plants running on coal and natural gas have historically been America’s largest source of carbon pollution contributing to climate change.

Revolution Wind brings together two new industries in the U.S. — offshore wind and electricity storage.

The expansion and scalability of renewables depends in part on new ways to store wind and solar power, which today can only be used when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.

Big batteries are seen as a solution to that problem because they allow renewable energy to be used whenever it’s needed.

So far, batteries are most often used to store solar power. Tesla has teamed up with electric companies in California to build batteries to help them use more solar, but it has not used the batteries for offshore wind power anywhere in the U.S.

(Ed: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia will be paired with the Hornsdale wind farm).

Tesla has not said what kind of batteries it plans to use for Revolution Wind, but the large batteries it currently builds, including the Tesla PowerPack, are composed of 16 pods that together weigh more than 3 tons and are 7 feet tall.

The pods are daisy-chained together and provide hundreds of kilowatts of power. Tesla declined to comment.

If approved, the Revolution Wind Farm will be built by Deepwater Wind, which switched on America’s first offshore wind farm in Rhode Island last year. That farm lead to the shutdown of a diesel-fired power plant on Block Island.

In a statement, Deepwater Wind said the offshore wind-battery storage pairing will provide clean energy during the times of highest electricity demand.

The project will prevent the need for new power plants that operate only when power demand is at its daily peak.

A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources said he had not seen the proposal and was unable to comment.

Source: Climate Central. Reproduced with permission.

Comments

7 responses to “Tesla joins effort to pair batteries with offshore wind”

  1. Steve159 Avatar
    Steve159

    Looks like Tesla, wind-power and solar companies are on a roll.
    Especially in view of the latest news regarding nuclear:
    “two South Carolina utilities said on Monday that they would abandon two unfinished nuclear reactors in the state, putting an end to a project that was once expected to howcase advanced nuclear technology but has since been plagued by delays and cost overruns.”

    “The two reactors, which have cost the utilities roughly $9 billion, remain less than 40 percent built.”
    [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/climate/nuclear-power-project-canceled-in-south-carolina.html]

    bye bye coal, nuclear.

    1. MaxG Avatar
      MaxG

      Imagine the sunk cost; and the potential cost once finished… over 22 BILLION (without potential cost overruns).

    2. Ian Avatar
      Ian

      $9 billion, that is very cheap compared with the perpetual problem of nuclear waste. Imagine the accumulated costs of storing the high level nuclear waste produced by those two nuclear power stations in perpetuity? Nuclear power has been used since 1954 -63 years. How many successful large scale permanent nuclear waste repositories are there anywhere in the world? Zero, zip, none. Over 250000 tonnes of HLW and no safe permanent storage for it anywhere, at all. Check out the world-nuclear.org site of proposals for disposing of this safely, like the very sensible idea of blasting it off into the sun! The other hugely popular idea is storing it in Australia, the land of mines and deserts. Those mild-mannered people who love to travel elsewhere won’t complain a bit. She’ll be alright mate.

      1. Steve159 Avatar
        Steve159

        “the very sensible idea of blasting it off into the sun!” — at first I did a double-take, before I realised you were being sarcastic.

        Imagine the fallout (pun intended) should a rocket carrying said waste, have a similar accident as the Challenger Shuttle.

  2. Scottish Scientist Avatar

    144W wind farm? Want power on demand, 24/7/52, whatever the weather?
    Then consult the Wind, storage and back-up system designer Wind Generation Capacity Focus Table with Wind Power set to 144 MW.
    http://scottish.scienceontheweb.net/Wind%20power%20storage%20back-up%20calculator.htm?wind=144

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5cb8e6687afe9dfd1891b82818ae20097f5b58e5693f163753a7c221a27b3093.jpg

    Peak demand, wind and back-up power / energy usage and storage capacity calculator

    For the specification and design of renewable energy electricity generation systems which successfully smooth intermittent wind generation to serve customer demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year.

    Adopting the recommendation derived from scientific computer modelling that the energy storage capacity be about 5 hours times the wind power capacity, the tables offer rows of previously successful modelled system configurations – row A, a configuration with no back-up power and rows B to G offering alternative ratios of wind power to back-up power. Columns consist of adjustable power and energy values in proportion to fixed multiplier factors.

    Scottish Scientist
    Independent Scientific Adviser for Scotland
    https://scottishscientist.wordpress.com/

    * Wind, storage and back-up system designer
    * Double Tidal Lagoon Baseload Scheme
    * Off-Shore Electricity from Wind, Solar and Hydrogen Power
    * World’s biggest-ever pumped-storage hydro-scheme, for Scotland?
    * Modelling of wind and pumped-storage power
    * Scotland Electricity Generation – my plan for 2020
    * South America – GREAT for Renewable Energy

    1. Tom Avatar
      Tom

      LOL – “Scottish Scientist – Independent Scientific Adviser for Scotland”.

      Whenever I check a reference I always check who wrote it, and check them out for their other businesses and their “actual or perceived” conflicts of interests.

      An anonymous blogger referencing their own web page as an anonymous blogger doesn’t hold a whole lot of credibility to their self-reference.

  3. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    Calling it “Deepwater Wind” is rather disturbing in the wake of The Deepwater Horizon Disaster.

Get up to 3 quotes from pre-vetted solar (and battery) installers.