South Australia’s Virtual Power Plant Kicks Off With 100 Tesla Powerwalls Installed

South Australia’s Virtual Power Plant Kicks Off With 100 Tesla Powerwalls Installed

A “Virtual Power Plant” in South Australia has goals to not only increase the reliability of the state’s energy network, but to also deliver energy bill savings of up to 30 per cent for thousands of low income households.

The first 100 Housing SA homes have just had solar panels and Tesla Powerwall batteries installed as part of the Tesla Virtual Power Plant project.

The state’s Minister for Energy and Mining, Dan van Holst Pellekaan, and the Minister for Human Services Michelle Lensink released a statement detailing the achievements of the VPP so far.

“Phase 1 of the Tesla Virtual Power Plant has shown that distributed Powerwall technology can help increase the supply of energy during peak demand periods”, the statement reads. “This technology, alongside large-scale storage, increase the reliability and reduce prices in the SouthAustralian electricity markets, and when paired with solar and wind generate clean renewable energy.”

Following the successful implementation of Phase 1, Phase 2 will involve the installation of home energy systems on a further 1,000 Housing SA homes before July 2019, thanks to a $30 million loan from the State Government.

“This program is already delivering participating South Australians significantly reduced electricity bills,” Minister van Holst Pellekaan said.

van Holst Pellekaan says the final rollout phase (Phase 3) is subject to the success of the trials, the financing of the program by the private sector, and the satisfaction of both Tesla and the Government in the final program design.

“In addition to this program, we will also be announcing details of our $100 million Household Storage Subsidy Scheme to deliver 40,000 more home batteries in the coming months.”

Minister for Human Services Michelle Lensink said the project was incredibly beneficial in offering much-needed bill relief for Housing SA tenants.

“This project gives South Australians huge help in paying excessive power bills as they struggle with daily cost of living expenses,” Minister Lensink said.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.