Microgrid projects powered by battery packs and solar arrays are starting to become more popular in remote areas. It has started to become clear in the last few months that the Tesla Powerpack is lowering the entry price of microgrid projects.
The company delivered another 20 Powerpacks for a project on an island in the Fijis that just won an award for its concept.
The new system was installed by a New Zealand-based company specializing in commercial solar and off-grid systems called PowerSmart. The company has installed several microgrids in the past, but it now started using li-ion batteries with the Powerpack.
The project is located at the Vunabaka Resort, which includes both a luxury hotel and a luxury residential development, on the Mamanuca Group island of Malolo in the Fiji Islands.
The Fiji Sun news reports that the project won an award from the Sustainable Electricity Association of New Zealand (SEANZ) for its concept and that it is now “the largest off-grid solar PV mini-grid in the South Pacific”.
It’s not clear on what metrics they are basing this, but it’s likely not on energy storage.
The project consists of 20 Tesla Powerpack for 4 MWh of energy storage and a 1 MW solar array, but Tesla recently completed another microgrid project of a slightly bigger scale that powers an entire island in American Samoa: 6-megawatt hour energy storage system with 60 Tesla Powerpacks.
Tesla also recently delivered 24 Powerpacks for a 1MW/2.3MWh system in a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, though that’s for grid services and not a microgrid. Another 10-Powerpack system was also delivered on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina earlier this month.
Back to the new project in the Fiji Islands. The company released a few pictures:
It’s a ridiculously beautiful place and hard to watch from Quebec around this time of year.
Interestingly, there are several developers building resorts and residences on the island and they are each building their own solar arrays, but they are pooling their resources together for the Tesla Powerpacks in order to retire some diesel generators.
PowerSmart released a quick video about the project:
https://vimeo.com/186359042
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