First China-made Tesla Megapack batteries on their way to big Australian storage project

The first Chinese made Tesla Megapack battery units are now officially on their way to Australia, headed towards the south east of Queensland where they will be installed for the second stage of the giant Western Downs battery.

The Megapacks are the first to be built at the new Tesla “megafactory” in Shanghai, which in itself is the first Tesla battery factory to be built outside of the US. It is in the same city as the “Gigafactory” that builds EVs, including for the Australia market.

Shanghai will be the supplier for the burgeoning Australian battery storage market, where Tesla still retains a one third market share after kicking off the industry with the installation of the original “Tesla big battery” at Hornsdale in South Australia in 2017.

The Shanghai plant has an initial annual production capacity of 10,000 Megapack units, each with 3.9 megawatt hours of energy, which Tesla says is sufficient to power approximately 3,600 households for one hour.

Tesla anticipates a year-on-year increase of at least 50 per cent in its energy storage deployments in 2025. “Megafactory gives us the ability to scale production and efficiency,” said Mike Snyder, vice president of Tesla. “We can lower logistics costs as well as product costs, and grow the business to new markets.”

The first Australian units will be installed in the second 270 MW, 540 MWh stage of the Western Downs battery being built by Neoen. Tesla has also been named as the supplier of the newly announced Calala battery near Tamworth in New England.

According to Alt-Energy, using data from Rosetta Analytics, Tesla remains the dominant supplier in the Australian battery storage market with a near one third share. Clearly, it is not suffering the same sort of backlash is its EVs because of the brand’s association with the Trump administration.

Second is Finish group Wartsila, which is supplying what will be the biggest battery project in the country, the 2,800 MWh Eraring battery, which will overtake the 2,240 MWh Collie battery being built by Neoen in Western Australia (with Tesla batteries), while Fluence comes in third ahead of China’s Trina and CATL.

See renew Economy’s Big Battery Storage Map of Australia for more details.

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