Question: Please study the article below and answer to TWO of the following questions: Elon Musk quietly constructing energy project in Texas and Tesla Is Plugging
Please study the article below and answer to TWO of the following questions:
Elon Musk quietly constructing energy project in Texas and Tesla Is Plugging a Secret Mega-Battery into the Texas Grid
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reportedly seeking to break into Texas's energy economy with a previously unknown battery that is under construction. Bloomberg reported that Gambit Energy Storage, a subsidiary of Tesla, is discreetly building a more than 100-megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas. A battery of that size could power around 20,000 homes in the summer, according to Bloomberg.
Workers at the construction site reportedly covered equipment and discouraged onlookers.
Property records indicate that Gambit shares the same address as a Tesla facility in Fremont, California, close to the company's auto plant.
Warren Lasher, senior director of system planning at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), told Bloomberg that Gambit was registered with ERCOT and that the project has a projected commercial operation date of June 1, 2021.
Bloomberg noted that although Tesla has largely focused on manufacturing electric vehicles, the company has always expanded beyond its product line.
"I think, long term, Tesla Energy will be roughly the same size as Tesla Automotive," Musk previously said in a June 2020 earnings call. "The energy business is collectively bigger than the automotive business."
Tesla is building a new auto plant in Texas and Musk has shifted some of his focus. In December 2020, Musk confirmed that he had moved to Texas due to California's regulations on tech companies.
Elon Musk is getting into the Texas power market, with previously unrevealed construction of a gigantic battery connected to an ailing electric grid that nearly collapsed last month, 2021 in Texas due to the snowstorm. The move marks Tesla Inc.s first major foray into the epicenter of the U.S. energy economy.
A Tesla subsidiary registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC is quietly building a more than 100-megawatt energy storage project in Angleton, Texas, a town roughly 40 miles south of Houston.
A battery that size could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day. Property records on file with Brazoria County show Gambit shares the same address as a Tesla facility near the companys auto plant in Fremont, California.
A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission list Gambit as a Tesla subsidiary.
As winter storms pummeled Texas in February and left millions without power for days, Musk took to Twitter to mock the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, the nonprofit group that manages the flow of electric power to more than 26 million customers. Elon Musk, recently moved to Texas and his various companies are expanding operations in the state.
The battery-storage system being built by Teslas Gambit subsidiary is registered with Ercot and sits adjacent to a Texas-New Mexico Power substation.
While Tesla is known for its sleek, battery-powered electric vehicles, it has always been more than a car company: its official mission is to accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy.
Utility-scale batteries are needed to store the electricity produced by wind and solar, but they can also become lucrative opportunities. By storing excess electricity when prices and demand are low, battery owners can sell it back to the grid when prices are high.
Tesla has spent years expanding into residential energy technology.
Back in March 2015, Musk revelead a home battery product, dubbed the Powerwall, with a splashy event at its design studio near Los Angeles.
Scores of utility and energy executives attended. A year later Tesla aquired SolarCity, the solar-panel installer founded by Musk and his cousins.
Musk then hawked a "solar roof" that has gone through several iterations without becoming a strong contender in the market.
But the companys product lineup already reaches beyond the home and into the electrical grid. The Tesla Powerpack and even larger Megapack were designed with utility customers in mind.
Teslas battery project in South Australia, launched in 2017, is adjacent to a wind farm and can store surplus electricity generated on gusty nights for daytime demand. At 100 megawatts, it was the largest battery project in the world at its launch.
While Teslas focus on energy often takes a back seat to the increasingly competitive business of manufacturing and selling electric cars, Musk and his executive team continue to highlight energy as a key part of their growth. I think long-term Tesla Energy will be roughly the same size as Tesla Automotive, Musk said during a call in July 2020.
The energy business is collectively bigger than the automotive business.
Teslas battery packs are connected to Southern California Edisons Mira Loma substation, located east of Los Angeles.
The 20 megawatt system, which has been online since December 2016, supports grid operation during peak hours and helps the utility make the most of its renewable resources. In the San Francisco Bay Area, PG&E Corp. and Tesla are constructing a 182.5-megawatt system at an electric substation in Moss Landing that should be operational by August 2021.
Tesla Energy could represent up to 30% of the companys total revenue by the 2030s, up from roughly 6% today, according to analyst Alexander Potter of Piper Sandler. His research has highlighted the potential for Autobidder, a software platform Tesla designed for utilities.
Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn has described as an autonomous energy market participation system that does high-frequency trading. Potter has a $1,200 price target on Tesla stock, the highest on Wall Street.
Teslas energy storage business on a percentage basis is growing faster than their car business, and its only going to accelerate, said Daniel Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at Wood MacKenzie Power and Renewables.
They are absolutely respected as a player, and they are competing aggressively on price.
Musks empire has numerous branches in Texas, and with the billionaires recent relocation from California, the Lone Star state now appears set to become the center of his universe.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, is building and testing Starship, a new rocket and spacecraft designed to take humans to Mars, at a facility in Boca Chica on the southern tip of the Gulf Coast. Another rocket-testing facility is in McGregor, near Waco.
SpaceX has posted engineering positions in Austin for a new, state of the art manufacturing facility for Starlink, a space-based high speed Internet service.
Tesla is also building a new factory in East Austin for its forthcoming Cybertruck, an electric pickup. Gigafactory Texas, as the facility is known, will create 5,000 mid-level manufacturing jobs and is supposed to produce the first vehicles by the end of this yeaMusks focus on Texas comes as the dominant U.S. energy hubwith its abundant natural gas, oil, solar and wind resourcesis being transformed by the surging growth of renewables. For more than a century the Texas grid has transported power from large plants to customers over miles of transmission lines. The recent storms have highlighted how fragile that legacy system is in the era of climate change. With the build out of giant batteries like those made by Teslas Gambit project and others, the states power grid could be remade more resilient.
About 2,100 megawatts of battery storage and 37,000 megawatts of solar and wind are in advanced stages of connecting to Ercots grid. Its not only stunning but the financing is already in place, Jigar Shah said on March 2, 2021, a day before the clean-energy pioneer was named as director of the U.S. Energy Departments loan finance office.
The Gambit project was originally developed by San Francisco-based Plus Power, a privately held renewables company that has battery operations in several states. Scott Albert, the former city manager of Angleton, said it was obvious that Plus Power was working with Tesla. A project summary available on the citys website features images of Teslas utility-scale battery products, and some of Plus Powers principal staffers previously worked at Tesla.
The Gambit project is not hard to find in Angleton, a small town of roughly 3,000 people in the middle of the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge.
In Texas, Albert said, it is common for developers in real estate or energy to begin projects with several potential partners or purchasers waiting in the wings. It made sense to him that the project ended up with the states biggest billionaire. Elon Musk has a lot of activity in Texas right now, said Albert. It wouldnt surprise me if Musk is thinking about starting his own power company.
1A) Do you see any job opportunities for you on Energy business in 10 years?
1B) What do you think about the future of Tesla & Car & Energy business? How much will be the Tesla stock price in 2022?
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