Elon Musk sparked a competition for the world’s biggest battery.
Ever since Tesla completed the 129-megawatt-hour Hornsdale Power Reserve battery plant after Musk’s high-profile Twitter bet, others have been looking to beat it.
This summer, for instance, saw two “world’s biggest battery” announcements coming out within days of each other. Given different commissioning dates, both might actually claim the prize for a while. But which country will ultimately end up with the biggest battery?
Here is a rundown of the top contenders, based on announcements made to date.
South Korea
LS Industrial Systems (LSIS) and Macquarie Capital Korea have won the contract to build and operate a 175-megawatt-hour battery storage system across five sites owned by SeAH, a steel conglomerate, LSIS announced in July.
LSIS did not give a commissioning date for the energy storage project but said it would be used to save cheap nighttime electricity for use in the daytime, creating savings of around KRW 130 billion (USD $116 million) over 15 years.
United Kingdom
The U.K. bagged a new national record for battery size in July with the opening of Stocking Pelham, a 50-megawatt-hour facility containing 150,000 lithium-ion cells.
However, the SMA Sunbelt Energy-owned installation could be dwarfed if plans for a 350-megawatt-hour battery system move forward in Graveney, near Kent in southeast England.
The battery is due to serve a 300-megawatt solar plant proposed by Hive Energy and Wirsol Energy. But both projects face significant opposition from campaigners concerned about their impact on nearby marshland ecosystems.
Australia
Despite worries that Hornsdale may have killed the business case for other big batteries in the market, Australia seems keen to stay at the forefront of massive battery development.
In March, GTM revealed that a British businessman, Sanjeev Gupta, plans to build a 120-megawatt, 140-megawatt-hour battery complex in the same region where Tesla completed its Hornsdale plant late last year.
And in May, Reuters reported that a consortium including JERA of Japan, Australian developer Lyon Group and battery provider Fluence was planning to develop a 400-megawatt-hour storage system in South Australia. Construction could begin “within months,” Reuters said.
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