Food group Cargill has entered into a deal to install Tesla's Energy Storage product at its beef processing facility in Fresno, California.
The company revealed on Friday that it had collaborated with Tesla and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) on the project, which is expected to reduce its annual electricity costs by more than $100,000.
Tesla's batteries will help Cargill reduce energy costs by storing electricity at off-peak use times and making it available to use during peak periods. The system installed at the Fresno plant has a 1 megawatt capacity that will be charged daily from the existing PG&E electricity grid system during off-peak hours, when electricity rates are lowest. The electricity stored in the batteries will then be used when rates are higher, during peak use times.
As well as reducing costs for Cargill, this lowers the plant's contribution to the daily state power peak, when less environmentally friendly electricity generation might otherwise be required to meet demand, the company said.
"Tesla Energy Storage is another example of our willingness to employ new and different concepts for reducing our environmental footprint in ways that benefit the community and our beef business," commented Jon Nash, Cargill's beef plant general manager at Fresno.
This is the first large-scale battery installation at a Cargill meat processing facility. The company said that it hopes to learn from this project for future potential use of the technology at its plants around the world.
