The South Australian government has today announced that solar tech billionaire Elon Musk will build the world’s biggest battery farm near Jamestown, in the state’s Mid North.

Yep that’s right, South Australia, home to good wine, pie floaters and the Hilltop Hoods is now getting 100 sweet megawatts worth of lithium ion battery storage.

Musk’s Tesla will construct the battery farm in partnership with a French company, Neoen. He’s also promised that if it doesn’t get built within 100 days the entire project will be done for free. It’s good be to be rich, hey?

Why Are We Building A Huge Battery Farm In SA?

Believe it or not today’s announcement is directly related to a bunch of tweets from back in March, fired off by Australian tech entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes and Musk. Cannon-Brookes suggested that if Musk and Tesla could get political support for a 100 megawatt battery farm, he would stump up the funding. Musk responded by saying that if he couldn’t get it up and running in 100 days he’d build it for free.

Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2017

That exchange came off the back of the much publicised blackouts in SA late last year. Even though those black outs were largely due to huge storms, conservative politicians thought it would be fun to blame renewable energy.

The SA energy debate generated a large amount of tension between federal and state politicians, with the federal government keen to blame SA’s relatively higher renewable energy target. In the end the state government decided to ignore the feds and pursue their own energy security policy, which included building a huge amount of battery storage.

Jay Weatherill, the premier of SA, today said that the project would “stabilise the South Australian network as well as putting downward pressure on prices”.

“Battery storage is the future of our national energy market, and the eyes of the world will be following our leadership in this space,” he said.

“It’s a fundamental efficiency improvement to the power grid, and it’s really quite necessary and quite obvious considering a renewable energy future,” Musk said today.

The battery farm will store enough energy to power the equivalent of 30,000 homes. It will be charged by a nearby windfarm.

It all sounds pretty damn exciting, and it’s pretty cool to see an Australian government actually showing some leadership on renewable energy for a change. Musk, you have your 100 days. Go forth and build.