Tesla chief Elon Musk 'to build world's biggest battery' in Britain, wipe out this area

Billionaire founder of Tesla, Elon Mask will reportedly build the world's largest battery in Britain, even as green campaigners are fighting to block the £400 million plan as it will virtually wipe out the area

The battery plan is part of a £400 million project to carpet a swathe of Kent marshland with nearly a million solar panels. Image source: Reuters

Billionaire founder of Tesla, Elon Mask will reportedly build the world's largest battery in Britain, even as green campaigners are fighting to block the £400 million plan as it will virtually wipe out the area. The plan is part of a £400 million project to carpet a swathe of Kent marshland with nearly a million solar panels. The size of the battery plant would be as big as 600 football pitches on marshland. Green campaigners say the marshland provides habitat for rare birds such as the marsh harrier and surrounded by protected zones for wildlife. The project’s 989,000 solar panels will be mounted on 12ft tall frames, according to Daily Mail. The battery will be three times as large as the current biggest, built last year by Elon Musk in South Australia.

The biggest battery that was built last year has a capacity of 129 megawatt hours. The new one will have capacity of storing 350MWhr, the report said. The battery units will cover an area equal to 15 football pitches.

The Graveney battery will store power generated during sunny periods during the daytime when demand and the changing electricity ‘spot price’ are low. The company will sell it to the National Grid at other times when prices are much higher. The developers, a partnership between Hive Energy and Wirsol, say that with a maximum output of 350MW, it will be seven times bigger in size of existing solar farm in Britain. The project will be able to ‘power over 110,00 homes’, it said. Expectedly, the project has united environmentalists against it.

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