Its too early to judge the performance of Jamestown Tesla Battery's (J-Bat's) performance after ownly operating a couple of months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Wind_Farm#Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

These batteries may have a role to play in short term frequency correction but not bulk energy storage. Contrast Hornsdale's 129 Mwh of storage with 350,000 Mwh for Snowy 2. The Finkel report suggested all of Australia's wind and solar farms should have storage or other backup linked to them.

Whether unsubsidised future batteries can pay their way from frequency support (FCAS), spot trading or other revenues is not clear. They'll never replace gas fired generation but gas gets more expensive every year. Conserve lithium for mobile phones and EVs hopefully cheaper than Teslas.

Pete,

Congratulations for beating Alan B three times in the one day. It wasn't that long ago that you were making cracks about old blokes in their pyjamas.

We South Australians, knowing the the socialist gang mismanaging the joint, always knew it was a huge joke. Thousands of houses have already been blacked out and, to add insult to injury, the treasurer is denying this. Stalinism is alive but very unwell here.

Russell seems to be unaware that SA has a large amount of gas fired generation, so the claims our battery size is inadequate is rather silly.

"South Australia was relying on Victoria for 31 per cent of its power, 23 per cent of which was provided by hydro-electricity."
IOW SA was taking advantage of Victoria's hydroelectricity to get cheaper power than we would have if it had all been generated in SA. There's nothing wrong with that - it's why we have a grid, and the power very often flows in the other direction.

Thankyou ttbn

For your accolade at "Thursday, 25 January 2018 10:03:26 AM".

Worship moi (and Keith Suter the Great [1]) as is your want.

[1] Sir Keith the Great http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=185

I accept and was already out of my jarmies (and mind?).

Cheers

Pete