By now, we’re all used to wild claims from Elon Musk…
The legendary CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX has promised the world things as realistic as affordable all-electric cars, and as out-of-this-world as the colonization of Mars.
This week, he made a promise that was a little more more believable than a colony on the Red Planet, and backed by his own personal guarantee: Musk will solve Australia’s energy crisis within 100 days, or the technology is free.
That’s the kind of deal you you’re used to hearing from salesmen in commercials, not tech billionaires looking to change the world. But hey, we’ll take it.
Australia isn’t in a position to say no, either. The southern half of the country has been plagued by widespread blackouts and energy shortages for months, caused by everything from massive storms to daily peak energy demand.
Put simply, the country’s grid just can’t handle everyday energy demand right now.
These issues leave around 1.7 million people under the threat of losing power at any time.
It’s not unlike the situation we saw in California last year, when a massive gas leak left the southern half of the state without peak energy coverage.
The difference is, of course, that Australia’s problem is on a much bigger scale.
Yet the very same company is coming to the rescue.
Musk has said that Tesla will install and bring online as much as 100 megawatt hours of energy storage capacity within 100 days of the contract being signed.
If the company can’t do it, the whole $25 million project is free of charge.
Already, Australia’s Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has said that the country’s government is willing to work with individual companies to get more energy storage online, and Musk, ever the opportunist, is making the first move.
The Twitter conversation between Musk and Mike Cannon-Brookes, one of the founders of Australia’s Atlassian Corp, will almost definitely be added to the archives of Musk’s biggest undertakings.
More important than his claim to fame, though, is what this project means for the energy storage industry…
We’re starting to see batteries become the go-to answer for our energy needs on ever larger scales, and that’s going to mean big things for some of our favorite battery metals.
To read more about Australia’s call for energy storage, click here to read the Reuters article.
