Goodbye Blackouts: Tesla Just Signed A Contract to Power the California Grid

Californians have another reason to smile (besides the great weather). Tesla has just won a massive contract to provide Southern California Edison with grid-scale power, a deal intended to prevent future power shortages like the one experienced following last October’s Aliso Canyon natural gas leak, the worst in U.S. history.

Tesla Motors Inc. will supply 20 megawatts (80 megawatt-hours) of energy storage via its Powerpacks, a contribution the company claims is enough to power approximately 2,500 homes for a full day. The most significant aspect of the deal (besides the tens of millions of dollars the packs are worth) is the record time in which Tesla will be delivering them: by the end of the year.

“The storage is being procured in a record time frame,” months instead of years, said Yayoi Sekine, a battery analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “It highlights the maturity of advanced technologies like energy storage to be contracted as a reliable resource in an emergency situation.”

Also significant is the deal’s role in making Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s long-term vision of transforming Tesla into a clean-energy company a reality. We’re one step closer to a Tesla in every garage and every home.