Electric vehicle maker Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is expanding its battery technology to help the State of Texas with its energy grid.
According to multiple news reports, Tesla is constructing a large battery that will connect to the Texas power grid and help it withstand future stress events such as the snowstorms that hit the largest U.S. state earlier this year.
Gambit Energy Storage LLC, which is registered as a Tesla subsidiary, is building a 100-megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas. The massive battery could power up to 20,000 homes in peak summer conditions.
News of the Tesla battery project comes after a mid-February storm knocked out half the state’s generating plants, triggering outages that killed dozens of people and pushed power prices up to 10 times their normal rate.
While Tesla is known for its battery-powered electric vehicles, it’s always been more than a car company. Its official mission is to "accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy." In 2016, Tesla won a contract to provide a 20-megawatt energy storage system at a substation owned by California utility Southern California Edison Co., which has proved to be successful.
Tesla has spent years expanding into residential energy technology. Also in 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity, a solar-panel installer that it continues to own and operate. Tesla Energy could represent up to 30% of the company’s total revenues by 2030, up from roughly 6% today, according to an analysis by investment bank Piper Sandler.
