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NEWS RELEASE Mercury chooses Tesla for ground-breaking battery project 15 January 2018 – Mercury has chosen Tesla to install New Zealand’s first national grid connected battery. Tesla has been confirmed as the battery provider for Mercury’s scalable national grid connected battery trial, following a competitive tender process that began in September last year. “We’ve chosen to work with Tesla for this ambitious technology development. Tesla has a proven track record in ground-breaking projects around the world,” said Fraser Whineray, Chief Executive. Mercury is investing over $2 million in a 1MW/ 2MWh project to research the integration of battery technology with New Zealand’s globally unique electricity system. “Mercury’s mission is energy freedom for New Zealand and New Zealanders, such as offering new choices in the ways that sustainable energy services are provided. Technologies like battery storage have the potential to complement our country’s energy system as it supports moves towards greater sustainability across the building, transport and agriculture sectors.” The Tesla Powerpack 2 large-scale battery that will be used in the direct grid-connected trial is the same modular, scalable technology as installed in Tesla’s projects in South Australia and Southern California. The trial will be located at Mercury’s Research & Development Centre in South Auckland, which is connected to the national grid. The site has capacity to scale battery storage similar to the 100MW/ 129MWh capacity of the South Australian Tesla system. Mercury will explore trading energy stored in the battery in both the wholesale electricity and reserve markets – another New Zealand first. The use of large-scale batteries could help to store and redistribute energy available from New Zealand’s natural batteries – our hydro lakes – to closer to centres of population, in this case potentially supporting the security of grid electricity supply for Auckland. The Powerpack 2 will be installed, connected to the grid, and ready to trade in the wholesale market in August 2018. This large scale battery is a commercial-scale variation of Tesla’s consumer-level Powerwall 2 battery product. The Powerwall 2 has been tested at Mercury’s R&D centre and will be available this year through Mercury Solar.
For further information: Media – Craig Dowling 0272 105 337 ABOUT MERCURY NZ LIMITED Mercury’s mission is energy freedom. Our purpose is to inspire New Zealanders to enjoy energy in more wonderful ways and our goal is to be New Zealand’s leading energy brand. We focus on our customers, our people, our partners and our country; maintain a long term view of sustainability; and promote wonderful choices. Mercury is energy made wonderful. www.mercury.co.nz