BP has launched a new project to store wind power that can be used to fuel electric cars.
BP’s current Titan wind farm in South Dakota, US, is starting a new project to store energy in potteries produced by Tesla. The project is set to get underway later this year, and BP is making preparations for the launch of the new scheme. The windfarm will add to the stored electricity in a Tesla battery with an energy capacity of 830 kilowatt hours, which could produce 212 kilowatts of power. BP hopes this new joint venture with Tesla will help make its wind power portfolio more reliable.
Titan is a 25MW wind farm. It is relatively small compared to the wind farms in the UK, but it is one of 13 owned by BP, which together produce around 2.26GW. BP remains of the largest renewable energy businesses in the sector.
Wind power isn’t the only renewable energy that BP is developing. The major oil firm has an Alternative Energy division, which is dedicated to finding new ways to create power. It has also committed to spend half a billion dollars on developing its renewable energy portfolio, mobility, digital and limiting carbon emissions. A few years ago, BP bought a $200million (£141million) stake in Lightsource, a UK solar power firm, as part of this initiative.
Dev Sanyal, BP’s alternative energy leader, explains these schemes in more depth. He says, “as a global energy business, BP is committed to addressing the dual challenge of meeting society’s need for more energy, while at the same time working to reduce carbon emissions. Projects like this one will be key in helping us get there and in playing our role in the global energy transmission”. It is clear that these projects are merely the beginning of BP’s ambition of becoming the leading oil company in alternative sources of energy.
As a company founded on progression, it is little surprise that BP has launched these initiatives. It initially formed after discovering oil in Persia to shift energy from coal to oil. Since then, it progressed oil to gas, and now it is concentrating on finding a mix of energy sources to promote a sustainable future.
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