Kintetsu Railway in Japan installs 42 Tesla Powerpacks as backup electricity

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  A view of the new Tesla Powerpack installation in Osaka. [credit: Tesla ]

On Wednesday, Tesla announced that it had installed a bank of 42 Powerpacks at a train station in Osaka to service the Kintetsu Railway during the summer or in the event of an emergency.

The electric railway encompasses 311 miles of track powered by overhead lines and third rails. In its “disaster preparedness” capacity, the Tesla batteries will provide emergency backup power in the event of a blackout, providing a short burst of electricity to move any trains that might be stalled in tunnels or under bridges to safety.

The system is small—it has a little more than 7 megawatt-hours (MWh) of capacity and delivers 4.2 megawatts (MW) of power at one time. That’s enough to power stranded trains on Kintetsu’s track for just under a half an hour in an emergency.