On Monday, a grid-scale battery storage system called Tesla WindCharger began running in Alberta, Canada. The batteries are able to charge up in just two hours, garnering energy from TransAlta’s 66MW Summerview II wind farm.
The project was purchased by TransAlta Renewables from its majority shareholder company, TransAlta Corporation. With the current arrangement, TransAlta Renewables will simple pay a fixed monthly charge to the corporation, for which it will get to operate and dispatch energy facilitation to the Alberta market.
A $10 billion (CAD) ($7.53 billion USD) investment plan for use on Canada’s infrastructure was granted a few weeks ago. The plan discussed using these funds for renewable energy and energy storage projects, a goal that Canada has made abundantly clear in recent months.
Congratulations to @TransAlta for its Commercial Operation of WindCharger, Alberta's First Utility Scale Battery Storage … https://t.co/LWRMcXBBcm #EnergyStorage
— Energy Storage Canada (@EnrgyStorageCAN) October 16, 2020
TransAlta Renewables President, John Kousinioris, said, “We want to thank Tesla for working with us on this exciting project.” He continued, “The completion of the WindCharger project is an important milestone as we progress towards our goal of providing clean, reliable, and low-cost energy solutions to our customers.”
Kousinioris also added that the technology shows “strong commercial potential.”
As the world continues to grow closer to the goal of reducing its carbon footprint, we’ll probably continue to see Canada incentivize the public into purchasing EVs. Soon, hopefully, we can also see the vast majority of cars on the road produce zero emissions, a major benefit to the planet.
