Tom Iggulden reported this story on Monday, March 13, 2017 08:04:25

The hype around Elon Musk's plan to build a battery farm in South Australia has gone up a notch, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull the latest high profile politician courting the views of the American technology guru.



But doubt remains about whether the plan will actually come off and how seriously local political leaders are about backing Mr , especially given he'd be starting behind other proposals to build battery storage to help with South Australia's beleaguered electricity grid.



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Matt Canavan, Resources Minister

David Green, Partner, Lyon Group



KIM LANDERS: The hype around Elon Musk's plan to build a battery farm in South Australia has gone up a notch, with the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the latest high profile politician courting the views of the American technology guru.



But doubt remains over whether the plan will actually come off and how seriously local political leaders are about backing Mr Musk, especially given since he'd be starting behind other proposals to build battery storage to help with South Australia's beleaguered electricity grid.



Tom Iggulden reports.



TOM IGGULDEN: The ABC understands the Prime Minister and Mr Musk spoke for about an hour.



The conversation is understood to have been a "general" one about the future of battery technology that only "touched on" Mr Musk's plan to build a 100 megawatt battery farm in South Australia.



Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who's a strong proponent of coal-fired power generation, says he's not reading too much into the call.



MATT CANAVAN: It's just discussions at this point and I don't believe anything specific to South Australia was discussed.



But we support all technologies - the Prime Minister is right in saying that we as a country need to look at all of the above.



TOM IGGULDEN: While Mr Turnbull was talking renewable technology with Elon Musk Senator Canavan has been inspecting coal fired power stations in Japan - one of several countries in the region to have recently built new generation high efficiency coal plants.



MATT CANAVAN: It would be a little strange if they can work in all of those countries as diverse as they are, but not work in Australia.



Now, we need to do more work of course about whether or not a specific, ultra-supercritical or more advanced coal-fired power station should be built in Australia.



But, in principle, it would seem strange if we would not go down this path.



TOM IGGULDEN: Mr Turnbull's conversation with Mr Musk follows South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill's talk with him on Saturday.



The technology billionaire's battery farm plan, announced out of the blue on Friday, is not the only one in train.



Local entrepreneur David Green, who's a partner at Lyon Group, has been working on his own battery farm proposal for almost a year and he's welcoming the interest from the highest levels of politics in battery technology.



DAVID GREEN: The involvement of leading politicians like the Prime Minister and premiers of states can only be a positive thing to raise the profile for the way in which batteries can be a significant contributor to stabilising (inaudible) as we get greater penetration of renewables.



TOM IGGULDEN: Have you or anyone from Lyon spoken with Mr Turnbull or Mr Weatherill for that matter?



DAVID GREEN: Oh we've, we have met with Mr Weatherill and ministers in South Australia.



I haven't spoken to the Prime Minister in any recent times.



TOM IGGULDEN: There's also been no contact from Federal Government ministers about the project, but he says that's okay.



DAVID GREEN: It's not about talk; it's about delivery.



And so, we're always keen to talk to people, but we're very keen to get on and deliver outcomes so that people can see these projects being delivered rather than talking about them.



KIM LANDERS: Battery farm proponent David Green ending Tom Iggulden's report.