Tesla to power new massive $500 million energy storage project

Tesla is going to supply its Megapack for a massive new $500 million energy storage project in Arizona in partnership with Strata Clean Energy.

It should become one of the largest battery projects in the world.

Today, Strata announced that it signed a 20-year tolling agreement with Arizona Public Service (APS) for a massive new 255 MW/1 GWh battery storage project in Phoenix, Arizona.

The project, which is called Scatter Wash battery storage, will be built, owned, and operated by Stata.

Josh Rogol, President of Strata Clean Energy, commented:

We believe that APS will continue to be a leader in battery energy storage and that our experienced Scottsdale-based team is well positioned to help move the state towards achieving its clean-energy objectives with projects like Scatter Wash. We have a large pipeline of additional clean energy projects in the Western United States and world-class execution capabilities.

The company didn’t disclose the battery provider in the announcement, but since Strata had worked with Tesla in the past, like when it had Megapacks replace a gas peaker in California, and Tesla Megapacks have been the preferred battery system for large utility-scale energy storage, I decided to reach out and ask if it would be the case here.

Sure enough, Strata confirmed to Electrek that Tesla will be supplying the battery for this large 1 GWh project. This project alone would represent a quarter of Tesla’s record energy deployment, which was achieved in Q1 2023.

Tesla deployed 3.9 GWh of energy storage in a single quarter – representing a 360% increase year-over-year.

Over the last year, Tesla’s energy storage deployment appears to be hitting a hockey stick curve increase thanks to its new Megafactory in California, which Tesla is ramping up to a capacity to produce 40 GWh worth of Megapacks per year.

Recently, the company announced another Megafactory to be built in Shanghai. It will attempt to replicate the success that Megapack has been having in the US for large-scale utility projectors to international markets.