Redflow CEO Simon Hackett has welcomed the announcement that the South Australian Government has awarded a contract to deploy a 129 megawatt hour (MWh) battery farm to help solve the State's power problems.

Mr Hackett said the ambitious Tesla project demonstrated the growing maturity of energy storage systems. "We believe that batteries have a integral role to play in the successful exploitation of renewable energy sources," he said.

"Elon Musk's promise to deploy 129 MWh of batteries for SA in 100 days is a big challenge, even for a US$50 billion company like Tesla. As a far smaller company, Redflow is not yet configured to produce that volume of batteries in that timeframe, so we will continue delivering our ZBM2 and ZCell batteries to telecom and residential customers in Australia and overseas.

"This is not a competition between Tesla and other battery companies, it's about renewables and energy storage demonstrating their capacity to technically and affordably replace fossil fuels. I look forward to seeing a system of that scale running on the South Australian grid as soon as possible.

"This project sets South Australia up as a world leader in the use of battery storage with renewable energy - a true signpost of the future of the world. I'm thrilled about that. The global energy storage market is huge and essentially it is largely untapped. This project will act as a validation point and an accelerant of change.

"Redflow is well positioned to be a part of the solution in markets appropriate to its technology. Every battery manufacturer is likely to be busy for the foreseeable future, all working to their respective technical strengths."

Redflow | www.redflow.com