Tesla batteries will power office buildings in California

One of the most dominant landlord in California, decided to use Tesla batteries to help power over two dozens of its office buildings. This will not only a great step in using clean energy, it will also save the company over $1 million a year in energy expenses. It seems that The Irvine Company’s buildings will be equipped with Tesla’s commercial-grade batteries, which are known by the Powerpack name. These batteries are able to store up to 100 kWh of power each. They are also pretty expensive at $25,000 each, but considering the benefit they offer they are worth every cent.

The Tesla batteries are not going to ensure all the power needed by the office building they will be installed in. The Powerpacks are meant to provide extra energy in period of time when the regular power grid is over solicited, such as hot summer days, when air conditioning systems are heavily used. The Tesla Energy battery farms, which will take up the space of five parking spaces, are also going to provide energy in the event of a power failure. Since the batteries delivered by Tesla will be charged during non- peak hours, there will always be enough energy stocked in order to maintain the functionality of the targeted buildings.

Although the Tesla batteries will be installed in the space offered by The Irvine Company, the project itself will be developed by the San Francisco- based Advanced Microgrid Solutions. This renewable energy company is actually the one that will install the Tesla commercial- grade batteries in the office buildings owned by The Irvine Company. In order to cover the expenses of the installation of the Tesla battery farms AMS will work with the local utility Southern California Edison.

According to an announcement made this summer, AMS opted for Tesla batteries after considering tech suppliers from all over the world. They decided in the end that Tesla is “the most powerful and scalable and in a class of its own”.  It seems that AMS is going to buy and install 500 megawatt-hours’ worth of battery storage from Tesla, which is, no doubt, a great deal.

The first office building to benefit from the Tesla batteries is probably going to be the 15-story Irvine Spectrum Tower at 20 Pacifica Ave. This building is supposed to receive the batteries by the end of the year. Other buildings will follow, probably in 2016. Equipping office buildings with Tesla batteries is only a part of a much bigger plan. SCE’s grid modernization plan encourages distributed solar power and energy storage with power plants acting as grid resources.