Sunshining, a company that belongs to Spanish-Portuguese solar developer Prosolia, plans to use Tesla batteries to support its proposed 1GW solar system in Alentejo, Santiago do Cacém.
The plant would require an estimated €1 billion investment. The Câmara Municipal de Santiago do Cacém’s urban planning and management division in Portugal told PV Magazine that the project was currently undergoing environmental evaluation.
Sunshining’s solar system, called the THSiS plant, could be one of the largest battery-powered plants in Europe with its proposed 1GW size. For context, the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia consists of 99 turbines with a generation capacity of 315 MW. A 150MW/194MWh Tesla Powerpack installation called the Hornsdale Power Reserve supports the Hornsdale Wind Farm.
In the last earnings call, Tesla reported that its energy storage deployments grew substantially between 2019 and 2020. The company’s total battery deployments surpassed 3GWh in 2020, increasing by 83% compared to the previous year. Megapacks were the main reason for growth.
The THSiS plant will probably use Tesla Megapacks for storage, given the amount of power it could generate. Tesla and PG&E’s Moss Landing battery installation in Moss Landing, California also uses Megapacks for a 182.5MW/730MWh system.
More than 250 Megapacks will make up Tesla and PG&E’s Moss Landing battery installation, which will store energy generated from both solar and wind. Portugal’s proposed 1GW solar project from Sunshining, provided that it gets fully approved, could very well require far more batteries than Moss Landing.
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