Among tech companies, Tesla has always done things in a big way. Recently, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based manufacturer of luxury electrical vehicles added to its list of outsized endeavors when it announced a major battery storage project for electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE).

In a blog post on September 15, Tesla announced it had been selected to provide a 20-megawatt (MW)/80-megawatt-hour (MWh) Powerpack system for the utility’s Mira Loma substation. The EV and battery manufacturer boasts that the new project, when completed, will be the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in the world. When fully charged, it will hold enough energy to power more than 2,500 households for a day.

Big announcements from Tesla have almost become commonplace. The company has already shown its innovative thinking by adding sleek and modern battery storage packs to its lineup of high-end EVs. Recently, it announced its intention to acquire solar panel manufacturer SolarCity. In 2014, the company broke ground on its "Gigafactory," a gigantic facility in Sparks, Nev. that will produce lithium-ion batteries on a massive scale. It has a planned annual battery production capacity of 35 gigawatt-hours (GWh).

It was the factory’s ability to manufacture immense battery capacity at low cost that gave Tesla the winning bid. According to the blog, “the Gigafactory's ability to produce at a large scale will allow this system to be manufactured, shipped, installed and commissioned in three months.”

SCE and other utilities were directed by the California Public Utilities Commission to solicit a utility-scale storage solution that could be operational by Dec. 31, 2016. The directive came after last year’s Aliso Canyon natural gas rupture underscored the vulnerability of the state’s energy system to disruption and the pressing need for more reliable, and cleaner, means of storage.