Tesla has scored a contract for 100 MW of batteries for energy storage in Israel as it enters the market.
Tesla has been looking into entering the Israeli auto market for a while now.
Last year, we reported that Tesla is working on opening a service center and a Supercharging station in Tel Aviv.
The automaker listed some job openings for sale and service positions in the city.
At the time, it was believed that the automaker was preparing to soon start taking orders for its electric vehicles in the market, but it didn’t happen.
Furthermore, there were local reports last year that claimed Tesla was working to open an R&D office in Israel.
Nothing official has come out of that effort, either.
But things started to move for real last month when Tesla obtained an official license to import its vehicles in the country and indicated that it planned to open a Tesla center and Supercharger stations “early in 2021”.
Sure enough, Tesla officially opened orders for its vehicles last month.
But the automaker is also launching its “Tesla Energy” division in Israel, and now, it has received a large order for energy storage products.
Local energy company Nofar announced the order (via Globes and translated from Hebrew):
“This morning Nofar Energy announced an agreement with the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla for the purchase of battery storage systems for $30 million, of which a down payment equal to 5% of the consideration paid at the time of the contract.”
We don’t know the energy capacity that was ordered, but Nofar said that the agreement with Tesla will deliver over 100 megawatts of power capacity between the end of 2021 and March 2023.
Therefore, it’s not one of the biggest energy storage projects that Tesla is working on right now, but we are talking about a significant capacity.
Tesla’s energy division is on fire lately with a record 1,584 MWh of energy storage deployed last quarter.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.
Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
