World's biggest solar battery in South Africa begins delivering power to Eskom grid. 10 points

livemint.com:

Statec -- South Africa's largest player in the solar energy market -- said its solar battery storage system started feeding power into Eskom's grid in mid-December from its hybrid solar and battery facility in the Northern Cape province, which receives the greatest amount of sunlight in the country throughout the year. -Statec has built three plants in the region, covering 879 hectares and stretching 10 kilometres from north to south. Together, the plants can produce a combined solar capacity of 540 MW while its massive solar battery system can deliver up to 225 MW of power into the grid.

-The project involved over 2,600 workers spending almost 18 months installing close to a million photovoltaic modules. -The Statec team used 9,000 kilometres of cabling, equivalent to the distance between South Africa and Norway. -To put the scale of the facility in perspective, Statec said each of the 456 battery units is the size of a shipping container and weighs around 3,000 kilogramme.

-Statec said the project was one of the world's first and largest hybrid solar and battery storage facilities. -Statec is selling electricity from the facility to Eskom under a 20-year power purchase agreement. -This is part of concessions made by the South African government for private power generation since the loadshedding crisis began a few years ago.