The boss of the United States company which has just built a diesel-powered bank of generators in 58 days to help solve South Australia's electricity woes concedes Tesla's big storage battery unveiled on Friday is much more "sexy" and rightfully attracting world attention.

The Tesla battery near Jamestown in South Australia's mid-north is a core part of a $550 million "energy plan" announced in March, 2017 by Premier Jay Weatherill and his Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis to shore up the fragile electricity grid. But APR Energy is also part of the fix-it plans and built, in record time, a bank of nine powerful turbines to deliver 276MW of power should there be an electricity shortfall over summer.