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Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

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Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#51

Post by rdl »

ptaipale wrote: post #46
flukus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most peoples electricity usage is relatively inelastic and no one wants the cognitive overload of checking electricity prices before they put the TV on.

However, wouldn't it make sense to e.g. adjust heating/air conditioning depending on electricity spot price? That's then just a gadget that gets the information and guides the home system. It'll probably be more meaningful in some industrial plants though, if there's any such energy-intensive industry.

I'd be pretty happy to pause an EV charge many times. Since Teslas are data-connected, they could possibly do this with no grid interface beyond the power connection.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#53

Post by nl »

flukus wrote: post #44
WalterBright wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having real-time pricing of electricity coupled with users who can adapt their usage automatically to real-time prices will also considerably moderate power demand.

Most peoples electricity usage is relatively inelastic and no one wants the cognitive overload of checking electricity prices before they put the TV on.

TV isn't the problem.

Most of benefits come if you have a system which can regulate slightly your use of air conditioning and heating (and a few other things like pool pumps).

In some cases you can save 50% of a daily powerbill by turning off the compressor in an air conditioner for 15 minutes.. but the right 15 minutes.

Few people would get up and turn off the air con for that, but a system that let you say how much you want to spend on it that you setup once makes a lot of sense.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#54

Post by dragontamer »

To put some numbers into perspective. Texas recently purchased 317MW of CAES.

http://www.apexcaes.com/project

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Pumped Hydro is 3GW (Giga-watts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta...

And has a storage capacity of ~10 hours (that's 30GW approximately).

---------

20MW isn't exactly "massive" in the utility scale.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#55

Post by hkmurakami »

mturmon wrote: post #29
h4nkoslo wrote: post #22

Musk really does seem to be following his pattern of maximally engaging government contracts and subsidies. (That's not necessarily a criticism, just an observation, and one others have made before.)

I heard Richard Branson's business projects described the same way. (One link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/truth-... )

Similar to Son Masayoshi of SoftBank. (Wireless spectrum, solar subsidies)

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#56

Post by semi-extrinsic »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

I think its important to note, for those who complain Tesla can't compete against pumped storage or other utility scale storage methods, that Tesla is able to have this deployed in 3 months (this is partly because Tesla can just drop racks of batteries on site and be up and running, and partly because of the regulatory environment after the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage complex leak fiasco). Edit: This will replac…

So this is only financially viable because of Californian risk aversion after last years gas leak. If you have a reliable natural gas distribution network, like the rest of the world, batteries don't make any financial sense versus gas power plants.

I mean, this entire plant can supply 20 MW and will cost somewhere around $20 million. For that price you can buy two General Electric LM2500 gas turbine generators that can supply 47 MW and will fit in the same space as three 40-ft shipping containers. (These are basically just aircraft engines modified to produce electricity.)

So while this particular sale is of course good for Tesla, I don't see how one can justify this as Tesla "transitioning to a clean energy company". They saw a profitable, but likely one-time, opportunity localised to CA and they took it.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#57

Post by greglindahl »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #56
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

I think its important to note, for those who complain Tesla can't compete against pumped storage or other utility scale storage methods, that Tesla is able to have this deployed in 3 months (this is partly because Tesla can just drop racks of batteries on site and be up and running, and partly because of the regulatory environment after the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage complex leak fiasco). Edit: This will replac…

So this is only financially viable because of Californian risk aversion after last years gas leak. If you have a reliable natural gas distribution network, like the rest of the world, batteries don't make any financial sense versus gas power plants. I mean, this entire plant can supply 20 MW and will cost somewhere around $20 million. For that price you can buy two General Electric LM2500 gas turbine generators that…

Gas power plants and batteries have different timescales. Grids with a lot of renewable energy need a slice of capacity that can ramp up faster than a gas turbine.

"The fastest loading gas turbine models produce 30% load delivery after 7 minutes" -- http://www.wartsila.com/energy/learning-center/technical-com...

If you've driven a Tesla, you may have noticed that they can reach peak a bit faster than that.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#58

Post by aggie »

h4nkoslo wrote: post #22

Musk really does seem to be following his pattern of maximally engaging government contracts and subsidies. (That's not necessarily a criticism, just an observation, and one others have made before.)

You could also frame this as his companies align well with government initiatives because their success is largely in the public interest (or at least the success of the markets they are in or trying to establish).

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#59

Post by toomuchtodo »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #56
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

I think its important to note, for those who complain Tesla can't compete against pumped storage or other utility scale storage methods, that Tesla is able to have this deployed in 3 months (this is partly because Tesla can just drop racks of batteries on site and be up and running, and partly because of the regulatory environment after the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage complex leak fiasco). Edit: This will replac…

So this is only financially viable because of Californian risk aversion after last years gas leak. If you have a reliable natural gas distribution network, like the rest of the world, batteries don't make any financial sense versus gas power plants. I mean, this entire plant can supply 20 MW and will cost somewhere around $20 million. For that price you can buy two General Electric LM2500 gas turbine generators that…

I'd encourage you to spend 15 minutes researching what the costs are of running a peaker plant. There's a reason they're the most expensive generation method per MWh (peakers run for under 100 hours per year).

Revenue is revenue. If Tesla is able to cannibalize the peakers to contribute towards its enormous capital expenditures, and continue to reduce costs with the Gigafactory, it only makes utility battery storage more affordable.

There is no scenario where the cost curve per kWh of battery storage goes up.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#60

Post by semi-extrinsic »

pyoung wrote: post #10
charlesetc wrote: post #3

Why do you all rely on oil? Just use batteries... \s I think it's important to note that they are not "replacing fossil-fuel electricity generation with lithium-ion batteries". They are putting fossil-fuel supplied electricity into batteries to use at a later date.

The biggest need for storage is to offset the intermittency of solar and wind, and to help shift peak solar generation (typically 12-2pm) to match peak demand (typically 4-8pm). Reliable and affordable storage is a prerequisite to wide scale solar and wind generation. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/californias-duck...

Sure you want to smooth out intermittencies, but this plant is way too tiny to actually store energy when it's windy and releasing it when it's not. It's more likely to handle peaking on a minute-by-minute basis.

Considering that a single big wind turbine produces 8 MW, this 80 MWh storage facility can only store 5 hours of production from two wind turbines!

And one of those turbines only costs about half of the Tesla storage facility.

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