Apple revealed on Wednesday that it will be building a massive battery storage project at its solar farm in northern California using Tesla battery packs.
The solar farm in California will be able to store up to 240 megawatt-hours of electricity. It will be made up of 85 Tesla lithium-ion megapacks, with groups of four each installed on 75’x12′ concrete pads.
Despite the large capacity, this will not be Tesla’s largest storage setup. Storage solutions in Australia and Houston, Texas were about 100MW in capacity, compared to Apple’s 60MW.
Regardless, Apple said in a press release that this would be one of the largest battery projects in the United States. It also claimed that it will be able to power over 7,000 homes for an entire day.
Tesla has spent the last few years attempting to develop an energy storage business to complement the solar products it acquired when it purchased Solar City. Aside from its home battery service, the company has become increasingly involved in large-scale energy storage projects.
It also acquired Volkswagen as a customer, supplying batteries for their Electrify America charging stations.
Apple is said to be working on a lithium iron phosphate battery for its electric vehicle project. However, it is not clear if it is working on any grid-scale projects.
Source: The Verge
