The world's largest "battery storage station" has opened in Australia: the system uses Tesla batteries

One of the world's largest battery-based energy storage systems, using tesla's Megapack battery series, was officially launched in Victoria, Australia, on Wednesday, local time.

In the future, large-scale energy storage systems based on lithium batteries could prevent grid blackouts, allowing power companies to store and use renewable energy from intermittent sources, such as solar and wind.

The Victorian facility is being developed by Paris-based renewable energy giant Neoen in partnership with Tesla's energy business and AusNet, while Cimic's UGL is involved in part of the project, according to the report.

According to the project's website, the storage facility could store enough electricity to power one million Australian homes for half an hour.

Lily D 'Ambrosio, Australia's minister for energy, environment and Climate change, said in a tweet on Wednesday that the Battery Storage System in Victoria, the largest lithium-ion battery system in the southern hemisphere, would keep the lights on in hot weather and keep prices down, "Victoria, you should be proud of this."

According to Australian newspaper The Age, 80 per cent of the energy storage system is used at times of high load stress on Victoria's grid. In such a situation, the system could last up to an hour in about 650,000 homes.

While that's not a long time to be on the grid, a short backup power service would be a great convenience to a large number of people.

Traditionally, if there was a problem with a generating facility, grid companies would use emergency generators to generate electricity and supply it to the power plant, first restoring their generating operations and then restoring power to businesses or homes.

In future, energy storage systems based on large lithium batteries could keep the lights on in businesses and homes if grid companies need to deal with power plants. Of course, these energy storage systems could also be used to help power plants restore power in the first place.

Notably, two Tesla-supplied Megapack batteries caught fire during the first trial of the system in Victoria in July. Fortunately, no one was injured. But the fire triggered an emergency warning of toxic fumes spreading in the nearby community.

Neoen said that after the fire broke out, it worked with Tesla to analyze the cause of the fire, and tesla took steps to reduce the risk. Among them, Tesla made some modifications to the firmware (software) and field monitoring system of the Megapack battery.

Tesla has an energy business in addition to its core electric vehicle business. But in recent years, the energy business has not become a profit engine for Tesla. During a recent third-quarter earnings call with analysts, company executives described growing demand for Tesla's various energy storage products, including the Powerwall for homes, the Powerpack for commercial facilities and the Megapack for electric utilities.

In the third quarter, Tesla's energy business generated $806 million in revenue. In addition to its energy storage products, the unit also integrates the rooftop solar business that Tesla acquired in the past.

The cost of revenue from Tesla's energy business climbed to $803 million in the third quarter, meaning the business made only a tiny profit. For comparison, Tesla's electric vehicle business, which generated $12 billion in revenue in the third quarter, had a cost of revenue of $8.4 billion.