Cargill & PG&E Among Early Tesla Battery Storage Partners

Tesla is apparently having no trouble finding companies interested in using its newly unveiled energy/battery storage solutions. As just a couple more examples, Cargill and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) will be installing a 1 MWh (megawatt-hour) Tesla battery system at Cargill’s Fresno, California, beef processing facility.

This battery system will be recharged on a daily basis via the PG&E electricity grid during off-peak hours — in order to lower operating costs, via the use of off-peak electricity rather than peak electricity (lower rates).

Reportedly, annual savings for the facility will total more than $100,000 — representing a fairly substantial motivation for the move. Based on the success of the pilot, Cargill is considering installing such systems at other facilities worldwide.

In addition to this new partnership, the IT/energy company LichtBlick also just announced a collaboration with Tesla — to integrate Tesla’s new Powerwall home battery systems into the broader German energy market. The collaboration will in the future be expanded throughout the European Union, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, reportedly.

By utilizing its SchwarmDirigent IT platform, LichtBlick will be linking together decentralized producers + storage systems and the wider energy markets — allowing for the “smart” provision and/or purchase of electricity to and from the broader markets. For instance: providing electricity at certain times of day, then accepting grid electricity at others for storage, etc. Consumers that use the service will be granted energy market revenues through the company. The company already runs a “digital power plant” in Germany that is integrated with over a 1000 decentralized providers in the region.

Note that Tesla is targeting a few initial markets where the difference between the price of electricity from the grid and the price to produce it from solar + storage is most attractive, and that includes Germany, Australia, and Hawaii. I wonder how many homeowners and businesses will adopt the Tesla Powerwall in Germany.

Image Credit: Tesla