Tesla’s energy division is deploying a new Powerpack project in Weld County, Colorado, where it could save ratepayers and the local utility as much as $1 million per year.

We are just starting to understand the value of large-scale energy storage system deployed on the electric grid.

The best example we have so far is Tesla’s massive Powerpack battery in Australia, which we recently learned cost $66 million and already made up to ~$17 million.

But that’s in a very expensive electric market, how about in other markets?

We now learn that Tesla is deploying an important new Powerpack project with United Power in Weld County, Colorado to use the storage capacity to reduce cost during peak demand hours in communities from Brighton to Mead (North of Denver).

The project consists of 80 Powerpacks, which should result in an energy storage capacity of over 16 MWh.

Jerry Marizza, the New Business Director for United Power, said that he expects the project will save them and ratepayers about $1 million per year (via CBS Denver):

“This is basically going to save our members and United Power about $1 million a year to operate on battery, that’s a good thing,”

Tesla’s batteries will charge during peak renewable energy production hours and discharge during peak demand hours in order to stabilize the grid and reduce cost.

Marizza said that Tesla was an “easy choice” for the project:

“I feel they’re kind of battle tested. They’ve been operating cars and doing things with batteries for a long time. There’s a bit of a known quantity to the Tesla battery,”

It’s the electric utility’s first battery energy storage project, but Marizza said that they need to deploy more:

“Everybody is watching, there will be a lot of eyeballs on this project and see how successful we are with it and I’m sure it will spur some other activity in this state,”

United Power expects the Powerpack project to come online in the coming weeks.

Tesla has several large energy storage projects currently in development. The most impressive is the massive ‘up to 1.1 GWh’ Powerpack battery system that Tesla and PG&E are working on.

Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla Energy is ‘battery cell starved’ but the growth outlook is ‘crazy’.

A ramp up in production for Tesla’s energy products is expected by the end of the year and it should result in many more projects like this one showing up on our radar.

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