# Capture — 500,000 homes

- **Claim filed:** “a giant 2,000 megawatt battery… providing enough power for 500,000 homes.”
- **Who:** Malcolm Turnbull, 21 December 2017
- **URL:** https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-21/snowy-hydro-2.0-could-actually-cost-as-much-as-$4.5b/9277368
- **Date on page:** 21 December 2017
- **Publisher:** ABC News
- **Title:** Snowy Hydro 2.0 could actually cost as much as $4.5b — more than double the initial price tag
- **Captured:** 2026-08-14
- **Method:** saved HTML (`abc-2017-12-21.html`)

## Verbatim (ABC, quoting Turnbull’s statement)

> The project will act as a giant 2,000 megawatt battery in the centre of the National Energy Market, providing enough power for 500,000 homes and much-needed backup for the increasing amount of wind and solar coming into the system.

## Same pitch, March — the week and the 20× battery

`guardian-2017-03-16.html` / `abc-2017-03-16.html`

Turnbull:

> In one hour it could produce 20 times the 100 megawatts an hour expected from the battery proposed by the South Australian Government, but would deliver it constantly for almost a week

Guardian also: “350,000 MW hours over seven days.” Expansion aimed to add 2,000 MW, “enough to power 500,000 homes.”

Paul Broad, March 2017 (Guardian): it would “absolutely” help keep the lights on.

## The other meter

2,000 MW is **power**. 350 GWh is **energy**. 500,000 homes is a power house-count. “A week” is an energy duration. They are not interchangeable.

2023 reset: capacity revised 10% higher to 2.2 GW; house-count became “three million homes for a week” (see that card). Tank still ~350 GWh.

First power still listed late 2027 as of June 2026. The 2017 lights-on line is still the old scheme.

## What this file does not do

It does not file “the turbines are fake.” It files a tap slogan and a tank slogan used as one number.