Mercury chief executive Fraser Whineray says the company chose Tesla because it has a proven track record in ground-breaking projects around the world. Picture / Ted Baghurst
Mercury NZ has selected Tesla as the provider for a scalable national grid-connected battery trial after a tender process launched last September.
A direct grid-connected battery is a large-scale battery able to take, store and return energy directly to the national grid, making it possible to provide energy when usage
is high or supply is disrupted.
Mercury, the electricity generator-retailer formerly known as MightyRiverPower, is investing more than $2 million to research the integration of 1 Megawatt/2 Megawatt per hour battery technology with New Zealand's electricity system.
The trial involves the Tesla Powerpack 2 large-scale battery and is the same modular, scalable technology installed in Tesla's projects in South Australia and Southern California, Mercury said.
The trial will be located at Mercury's research and development centre in South Auckland, which is connected to the national grid and has the capacity to scale battery storage. Mercury will explore trading energy stored in the battery in both the wholesale electricity and reserve markets.
