Tesla to install 7 MW batteries to Japanese Kintetsu trains to speed up railway system

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Japanese e railway will get enormous 7 MW battery installation by Tesla in case of a power outage. will run on this battery. From the 1st of April, the owner of the largest railway system of Japan, Kintetsu Railways will secure the timetable for one particular rail line with Tesla batteries.

The backup installation of 42 lithium-ion batteries was built by Tesla, in Osaka, and in just two days. At present, this is the largest energy storage project in Asia. The complex can provide enough power for a train to run for apx. 30 minutes.

Kintetsu Trains overhead line trains from Osaska can run as fast as 130 km/h, so with the backup capacity there would be plenty of time to reach safety.

But lithium-ion battery technology is not just for emergencies: earthquakes, tsunamis or kaiju attacks. Tesla and other market actors like GE – builder of the first battery powered locomotive – are eyeing at a potential word-wide market of electrified high speed rails.

Following the global trend of renewables, LI battery prices have fallen by 35 percent in 2018. Elon Musk states that the upcoming generation of batteries will cost only 100 USD per kWh.

In the West, the modernization of diesel-electric train fleets and upgrading the rail infrastructure have been pampered with for a long time, but the first fruits has just started to ripe. Last autumn Rolls-Royce signed an agreement to start trials with diesel trains upgraded with hybrid-electric MTU power packs in the UK, from 2020.

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