Hornsdale Power Reserve (2017)
December 2017What Happened
After South Australia suffered a state-wide blackout in 2016, the government sought grid stability solutions. Tesla won a contract and built the 100-megawatt Hornsdale battery in under 100 days, making it the world's largest lithium-ion battery at the time.
Outcome
The battery saved South Australian consumers A$150 million over two years and provided 55% of the state's frequency control services within six months of operation.
Hornsdale demonstrated that batteries could profitably provide grid services at scale, catalyzing Australia's battery storage industry. In 2022, it became the first battery globally to provide synthetic inertia services.
Why It's Relevant Today
Supernode represents the next generation of this approach—batteries positioned at critical grid nodes, designed from the start to provide system stability services, at six times Hornsdale's original capacity.
