Crane knocks down power line at Tesla’s Fremont Factory – production temporarily shutdown due to the power outage

According to NBC Bay Area, a crane knocked down a power line at Tesla’s Fremont factory Friday morning, creating a power outage and forcing Tesla to temporarily close the factory. PG&E, the local electric utility, is already on site according to a Tesla representative and the company is evaluating the situation.

Any shutdown of the Fremont factory is a big deal for Tesla since the location is the only manufacturing facility of the company’s only product, the Model S.

Ironically, Tesla sells battery packs to keep the lights on in case of power outages. They even installed a few of these battery packs at their own factory:

JB Straubel, Tesla’s CTO, said earlier this year that the company planned on increasing their energy storage capacity at the factory, but apparently the installation is still not big enough to support the factory’s power demand.

However, it doesn’t mean that the battery packs are useless. They can also be use to offset peak demand and charge at night, when electricity rate are cheaper.