Tesla builds a neat off-grid system to power SailGP boat racing

Tesla has built a neat solar power and energy storage off-grid system to power the SailGP boat racing series.

Ahead of the start of its second season, SailGP announced plans to be carbon neutral by 2025 starting with a project with Tesla:

With an increased sense of urgency in Season 2, SailGP will build on the foundations from year one, including via a technical project with Tesla.

The SailGP boats have onboard batteries to power some equipment.

During the previous season, they had a diesel generator charging the batteries for all the boats at their Sydney facility before a competition.

In order to charge the batteries with clean power, Tesla snd SailGP built a mobile off-grid energy storage system with Powerwall in a container and a solar power system on the roof:

It is equipped with a 13kW solar power system and two Tesla Powerwalls:

SailGP describes the project in a press release:

As part of the pilot program, 36 400W solar panels were installed in the Sydney SailGP Technical Area, along with Tesla Powerwalls. In the past, renewable power was lengthy and costly to install, but the new solution enables the solar kit to be assembled and dismantled quickly and transported from event to event. If the test is successful, it will lead to much wider use of renewable energy to ensure SailGP events are cleaner, greener and faster, while also creating a blueprint for other major events, as well as remote communities and disaster areas.

The project has been deployed with the new season of SailGP, which was supposed to start in February, but it has been delayed to next year.

Electrek’s Take

This is a neat little off-grid system that fits in a container.

I could see Tesla even having a similar system, but with a Megapack instead of just a regular container.

Like SailGP said, it would be really useful for “remote communities and disaster areas.”

It would be super-quick to deploy and probably less costly if everything (solar, batteries, and power electronics) is packaged into a single container.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.