British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta has launched the first stage of a renewable energy plan for South Australia's (SA) mid north.

Gupta's energy company, Simec Zen, revealed the details of the Cultana Solar Farm; the first stage of a one billion Australian dollar (723 million U.S. dollars) project that will also include the world's biggest lithium-ion battery.

The project will feature 780,000 solar panels producing 280 megawatts (MW) of electricity which is enough to power 96,000 homes.

"Today's event is symbolic of our desire to develop and invest in new-generation energy assets that will bring down Australia's electricity prices to competitive levels again," Gupta said.

When completed, Gupta's 120MW battery will surpass the 100MW battery built by Elon Musk's Tesla in SA in 2017 as the largest in the world.

However, the Gupta Family Group (GFG) Alliance has no intention to stop there with plans for pumped hydro projects and expanded solar farms being developed for SA.

"All of these projects will not only improve reliability and greatly reduce the cost of electricity in our own operations, they will also provide competitive sources of power for other industrial and commercial users, while at the same time playing a key role in the market's transition towards renewables," he said.

"We have a strong conviction that traditional carbon-intensive generation sources do not have a long-term future as the predominant source of power in Australia and globally.

"We believe the world is undergoing a momentous transition to renewable power as the cost of renewables drops dramatically and quickly."