Elon Musk's xAI has quietly built one of the country's largest batteries
Satellite imagery and utility statements suggest xAI has installed a multi-gigawatt-hour battery system at its Memphis data center, though the company has disclosed few details.
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI appears to have built one of the largest battery storage systems in the United States at its Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, Tennessee, though the exact capacity remains unclear because the company has released little official information. Satellite imagery from July showed 720 Tesla Megapack battery containers at the site, which would equate to roughly 2.8 gigawatt-hours of storage.
An xAI energy developer told the Tennessee Valley Authority's board the battery has 3.3 gigawatt-hours of capacity, while the CEO of Memphis Light, Gas and Water described it as "the world's largest grid-connected battery system," capable of letting the data center disconnect from the grid for up to four hours. By comparison, the largest publicly disclosed grid battery in the country, at the Edwards & Sanborn solar plant in California, holds about 3,287 megawatt-hours.
The installation follows controversy over xAI's use of unpermitted mobile gas generators at the same site — 69 of which were reportedly running as of July — which the Southern Environmental Law Center has sued over, citing air pollution concerns for nearby neighborhoods including Whitehaven. Gil Hough of the Tennessee Solar Energy Industries Association said the battery project "could be a real catalyst" for regional energy storage growth.
Based on reporting by Julian Spector for Canary Media. Read the original: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/xai-massive-battery-memphis-data-center
This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by an editor before publication.
