Tesla's giant new battery plant set to shake up energy industry

TESLA'S recent announcement about creating a new line of batteries for use by businesses, consumers and the electrical grid at large is a game changer for the industry. Currently, when individuals or companies need backup power, they usually rely on generators.

Effective battery storage for large amounts of energy would be a game changer in that it would enable a separation of generation and use of energy produced through clean fuels like solar and wind power.

The big problem with solar and wind right now is that the energy is only useful when it is actually produced and, because a company cannot modify generation to correspond with demand needs, any excess power has to be sold back to the market for immediate use. Tesla's new batteries could go a long way towards solving this problem. It is likely that US energy service provider Solar City, for example, would be very interested in any home application for large scale battery technology.