Elon Musk bets his company can fix South Australia's power issues in 100 days

Elon Musk likes to keep himself busy with challenging tasks. After trying to make it possible for humans to travel to Mars, Musk now aims to fix electricity problem of South Australia. But the fun here is, Tesla co-founder and CEO Musk has promised that he can mend ongoing power troubles within 100 days. And if he fails, he will give the system to the state for free.

You must be thinking what got into Musk's head to land up with such a decision. Well, it was Lyndon Rive, Tesla’s vice-president for energy products, who got it all started.

In an interview, Rive said that Tesla would prevent the power shortages that have been causing price spikes and blackouts in the state by installing 100-300 megawatt-hours (MWh) of batteries in the state within 100 days with Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory.

Rive said, "We don’t have 300MWh sitting there ready to go, but I’ll make sure there are. We could install everything and get it up and running within 100 days. We had a similar challenge in southern California …We got 80MWh up in 90 days."

In the meanwhile, Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes tweeted out to Musk questioning the integrity of the 100-day claim. Musk said that Tesla would “get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free.”

@mcannonbrookes 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

Later Mike requested the Tesla owner to provide him seven days to sort out funding and politics to set up the battery farm. He also asked Elon Musk to send him a rough quote for installing batteries to store 100 MW of energy. Musk replied a short while later quoting the price per battery pack at $250/kWh for the installation of 100MWh+ battery farms. It seems the process has already been started as Sarah Hanson-Young, Senator of South Australia and Jay Weatherill, Premier of the state reached out to Elon Musk.

@elonmusk Let's talk! https://t.co/KFoEcaBimc — Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) March 10, 2017

Considering Elon Musk's feat to this date, this challenge seems like win-win situation for Musk.