Tesla recently stated that it plans to complete the deployment of 1,500GWh of energy storage systems by 2030, helping to accelerate the global transition to sustainable energy.
Tesla’s financial report data shows that the company has deployed a total of 3,992MWh of energy storage projects in 2021, an increase of 32% over 2020 and more than double the amount in 2019. The company deployed 846MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in the first quarter of 2022, a 90% year-on-year increase from 445MWh in the first quarter of 2021.
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Although the growth momentum of the energy storage business is good, there is still a gap of nearly 375 times compared with 3.99GWh in 2021. There are still many uncertainties about whether Tesla can successfully complete the goal of 1500GWh
At present, Tesla mainly has three energy storage products: Powerwall, Powerpack, and Megapack.
Among them, Powerwall energy storage products are currently installed in more than 250,000 units worldwide. In addition, Tesla is trying to tie it into Apple's hardware ecosystem to stimulate user purchases.
Powerpack is mainly used in small public utilities and industry and commerce. It has multiple functions such as direct access to the Internet, intelligent energy consumption control, peak shaving and valley filling, emergency reserve, and support for electric auxiliary services. It has been applied to 18.2 MW in Belgium and 100MW/129MWh in Australia. energy storage project.
Megapack is mainly aimed at the utility-level energy storage market, providing sustainable alternative energy for traditional gas-fired peak-shaving power stations. Compared with similar products on the market, it has the advantages of small size and fast operation speed, and has good application prospects in the field of power grid upgrading and transformation. . Megapack can store up to 3MWh per unit.
To achieve business growth as planned, Tesla energy storage currently faces three major propositions to be solved.
(1) Price
Although Tesla has never used low prices as its selling point, in the energy industry where the brand premium is limited, the cost of electricity per kilowatt hour is the key to attracting customers.
The Powerwall home energy storage system is bundled with another of the company's solar roof products, and the quotation has increased from $1,128/kWh in Q3 2020 to $1,241/kWh in Q2 2021. The outbreak of the global energy storage market has caused the supply of raw materials to be tight, which in turn has led to the tight supply chain of batteries. It is the consensus of the industry. Therefore, it is reasonable for the price to rise in the short term, but it will inevitably have an adverse impact on product sales.
(2) Safety
In July 2021, a fire broke out in the Victorian Big Battery battery energy storage project with an energy storage capacity of 300MW/450MWh in Moorabool near Geelong, Australia. The investigation results showed that the cause of the accident was that the leakage of coolant caused the thermal runaway of the battery cells, which eventually caused the fire . The accident damaged two Tesla Megapack battery energy storage system units (a total of 212 units are planned to be installed in the project). Although the incident has passed for some time, the explosion of the energy storage system still raises concerns about the safety of Tesla.
(3) Capacity
Although the rapid expansion of the energy storage market space is conducive to Tesla's goal, because the current energy storage market demand is much higher than the company's existing capacity, the growth of the company's energy storage installed capacity is still limited by capacity.
It is understood that Tesla has six factories around the world. Fremont Gigafactory, California (USA), Austin Gigafactory, Texas (USA), Shanghai Gigafactory (China), Berlin Factory (Germany), Nevada Gigafactory, New York Factory. In addition to the Nevada Gigafactory, which mainly produces energy storage products Powerwall and Powerpack, other factories share the production tasks of Model Y, power batteries, solar panels and solar cells.
In 2021, Tesla decided to build a 40 GWh battery energy storage plant in Lathrop, California, which will only be used to produce the Megapack battery energy storage system, which uses Ningde era lithium iron phosphate cells. It can be seen that Tesla may want to expand the production capacity of Megapack by building a new factory to meet the requirements of future energy storage deployment. However, in order to complete the energy storage deployment target of 1500GWh, further capacity expansion is required, which does not include the interference caused by the policy and market environment.
In addition to capacity expansion, Tesla has successively acquired various large-scale battery energy storage projects in markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in the past few months.
On January 7, Tesla plans to build a giant battery energy storage project 81-Megapack in Texas with an energy storage capacity of 10MWh / 200 MWh.
In March, Tesla planned to deploy a Megapack large-scale energy storage project near the Texas Gigafactory, and signed a contract with Australia's Edify Energy to provide a 150MW/300MWh Megapack battery energy storage system solution for the project it is developing.
On April 19, Tesla announced the latest giant Megapack energy storage project "Townsite Solar and Storage Facility", with a capacity of 360MWh, which can supply power to 60,000 households. Located in Boulder, Nevada, the project is one of Tesla's largest Megapack projects.
Tesla is very optimistic about the market potential of Megapack products due to the relationship between "demand exceeding supply" in the market and the energy storage plant Tesla planned to build in California last year. However, it is understood that the development of Tesla's energy storage has not been smooth sailing. Factors such as its limited battery capacity and technology, and the tight labor market for qualified electricians have repeatedly disrupted the company's development plans in the energy storage industry.
In addition, Tesla's market share will also face competition from external forces such as CATL, Fluence, BYD, Samsung SDI, and LG. Whether the company can successfully complete the 1500GWh energy storage deployment in 2030 remains to be tested.
