Recently, Apple announced that it will build a large-scale battery storage project in a solar power plant in Northern California in 2015. But what the company did not disclose is that the battery packs they use will come from Tesla.
According to a report, submitted last year, the latest configuration achieves a power storage capacity of up to 240 MWh and has been approved by the Monterey County government. It would consist of 85 Tesla Megapack large energy storage devices consisting of lithium-ion, and for the company headquarters Cupertino supply power.
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The Monterey County Planning Officer confirmed that Apple will use Tesla batteries in the solar power plant. Apple declined to comment. Tesla did not respond.
Tesla released the Megapack battery system as early as 2019. However, the 60-megawatt storage configuration Apple used this time is not Tesla’s largest capacity product. The company has built larger overall battery storage solutions in Australia and southern Houston, Texas, with a scale of approximately 100 megawatts.
However, Apple still called it “one of the nation’s largest battery projects” in its press release, saying that the battery system can supply more than 7,000 homes with electricity for a whole day. With Tesla batteries, the energy produced by Apple’s 130-megawatt California Flats solar power plant can be stored.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president, told the media on Wednesday: “The challenge for clean energy sources such as solar and wind power lies in the intermittent power supply. If we can solve this problem and can prove its effectiveness, it can eliminate the intermittent problems. And provide assistance to the grid in terms of stability. This can be used by other companies to imitate or learn from.”
Although Apple uses lithium-ion batteries in many of its products, it has not carried out large-scale grid-level projects. According to reports, the company is developing lithium iron phosphate batteries for its electric vehicle project.
There is not much overlap between Apple and Tesla, apart from poaching talents with each other. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also stated in December last year that he had proposed that Apple acquire Tesla in 2018, but Apple CEO Tim Cook “refused” to meet with him.
Tesla is known for its electric vehicles, but the company has also spent several years building an energy storage business to supplement the solar products it acquired when it acquired Solar City. Over the years, the company has gradually participated in large-scale energy storage projects such as Apple in addition to its household battery business.
Compared with the billions of dollars in revenue from Tesla’s automotive business, this business is still insignificant, but the products of the energy storage division have attracted at least another giant: In 2019, Volkswagen announced that it will charge parts of its Electrify America. The station uses Tesla batteries.
