Skip to main content

Australia is building one of the world’s largest batteries using Tesla tech

Promotional image for Tech For Change. Person standing on solar panel looking at sunset.
This story is part of Tech for Change: an ongoing series in which we shine a spotlight on positive uses of technology, and showcase how they're helping to make the world a better place.

One of the challenges facing countries that want to change over from burning fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources is how to store energy. In Australia, the Victoria region currently relies on burning coal in power plants which produce energy throughout the days and seasons. But the state wants at least 50% of its power coming from renewable sources by 2030 — and for that, it needs an energy infrastructure including a way to store energy produced by solar, wind, or other renewable sources, which may only work in certain conditions.

That’s why Victoria is building one of the world’s largest batteries, the Victorian Big Battery Megapack. The battery will be the size of a football field and will provide 450 megawatts-hours of storage with up to 300 megawatts of power output. That’s double the size of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, another giant battery made by the same company that made headlines in 2018.

Recommended Videos

The company Neoen will build the battery along with Tesla, a company that has become a leading expert in battery technology through its development for electrical vehicles. The battery will be used as an automatic backup in case the local electrical grid is unstable, which should prevent blackouts — a problem which has become more pressing as the Victoria grid becomes overtaxed.

One of the problems caused by climate change in the region is hotter summers, with Australia’s last summer being the hottest and driest on record. This puts additional strain on thermal generators, which contributes to instability in the power grid. Such a large battery can hold a charge to be used when the system is unstable, so people in the region should have a more reliable supply of electricity.

The aim is for the battery to be ready for use by the end of next year, and Victoria politicians are hailing it as part of the state’s move away from fossil fuel dependence and toward a more sustainable future. “By securing one of the biggest batteries in the world, Victoria is taking a decisive step away from coal-fired power and embracing new technologies that will unlock more renewable energy than ever before,” Lily D’Ambrosio MP, Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, said in a statement.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Google just gave vision to AI, but it’s still not available for everyone
Gemini Live App on the Galaxy S25 Ultra broadcast to a TV showing the Gemini app with the camera feature open

Google has just officially announced the roll out of a powerful Gemini AI feature that means the intelligence can now see.

This started in March as Google began to show off Gemini Live, but it's now become more widely available.

Read more
This modular Pebble and Apple Watch underdog just smashed funding goals
UNA Watch

Both the Pebble Watch and Apple Watch are due some fierce competition as a new modular brand, UNA, is gaining some serous backing and excitement.

The UNA Watch is the creation of a Scottish company that wants to give everyone modular control of smartwatch upgrades and repairs.

Read more
Tesla, Warner Bros. dodge some claims in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ lawsuit, copyright battle continues
Tesla Cybercab at night

Tesla and Warner Bros. scored a partial legal victory as a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit filed by Alcon Entertainment, a production company behind the 2017 sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accused the two companies of using imagery from the film to promote Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle at an event hosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood in October of last year.
U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was inclined to dismiss Alcon’s allegations that Tesla and Warner Bros. violated trademark law, according to Reuters. Specifically, the judge said Musk only referenced the original Blade Runner movie at the event, and noted that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors.
"Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars," Reuters quoted Wu as saying. "Plaintiff is plainly not in that line of business."
Wu also dismissed most of Alcon's claims against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise.
However, the judge allowed Alcon to continue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for its alleged use of AI-generated images mimicking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without permission.
Alcan says that just hours before the Cybercab event, it had turned down a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an icononic still image” from the movie.
In the lawsuit, Alcon explained its decision by saying that “any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”
Alcon further said it did not want Blade Runner 2049 “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
But according to Alcon, Tesla went ahead with feeding images from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to yield a still image that appeared on screen for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With the image featured in the background, Musk directly referenced Blade Runner.
Alcon also said that Musk’s reference to Blade Runner 2049 was not a coincidence as the movie features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

Read more