U.S. electric carmaker Tesla Inc, run by entrepreneur Elon Musk, has applied for a licence to supply electricity in the United Kingdom. The application was made to the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority by Tesla Motors Co. last Tuesday and signed by Evan Rice, Tesla's energy products sales director.

According to a report in British newspaper the Telegraph, the company may want to introduce its Autobidder platform to the UK, a real-time automated energy trading platform which lets power producers monetize battery assets.

Battery expansion 

In 2017, Tesla created the world's largest lithium ion battery to help provide power to South Australia, where the Autobidder battery-asset trading platform is currently being operated at Tesla's Hornsdale Power Reserve.

But Musk's company could strengthen their presence in the UK as the British government considers the diversification of its energy market.

Last year, as part of the UK government's plans to go carbon neutral by 2050, Hyperdrive Innovation, a manufacturer of lithium-ion battery technology, opened the UK's largest independent battery manufacturing facility in Sunderland. 

In March, Penso Power announced that the 100 megawatt (MW) battery storage site that they are developing in southwest England, billed as the biggest storage project in Europe, would be expanded by another 50MW.

Read more: Tesla battery supplier stocks surge on Panasonic's first Gigafactory profit

The economic impact of COVID-19 may also present an opportunity to scale up the technologies needed to speed a transition to cleaner energy, according to Fatih Birol, executive director of the world's energy watchdog the International Energy Agency (IEA), 

That could mean governments driving rapid growth in battery and hydrogen technology to help the world reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, with many companies looking to cash in on the expansion.

At the time of writing, Tesla had not responded to CGTN Europe's enquiries about their plans for the electricity license.