Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

Post by jakub_h » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 7:28 AM UTC

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…

Post by andruby » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 7:30 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #35

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.

Yes. Also, trading off the reliability of power. This seems outrageous to many of us in the West, but here in Australia our power utility already cuts power to neighborhoods in half hour blocks during peak power consumption during summer (I believe they exclude hospitals and some other sites like that from this policy). The infrastructure savings made by this are huge (think of 99% reliability vs 99.99% in software),…

Post by semi-extrinsic » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 7:36 AM UTC

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…

Post by semi-extrinsic » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 7:41 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #69

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure peakers are expensive, but they are profitable, otherwise no-one would build and run them. Supply and demand etc. I'm not sure what you mean by Tesla cannibalizing the peakers? Do they already own traditional peaker plants? I agree revenue is revenue, I'm just saying this is perhaps unlikely to provide more revenue from sales outside CA.

Batteries are now cheaper than peakers everywhere, not just CA. That's what I'm saying. Tesla's PowerPack installs (battery storage receives federal incentives, nat gas does not) will replace peakers, leaving them as stranded assets (the cannibalization I refer to). Edit: unepipe: Tesla packs perform the exact same role as a peaker plant: energy on demand. They are distributed, dispatchable loads and generators, avai…

Post by kilotaras » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 8:04 AM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure peakers are expensive, but they are profitable, otherwise no-one would build and run them. Supply and demand etc. I'm not sure what you mean by Tesla cannibalizing the peakers? Do they already own traditional peaker plants? I agree revenue is revenue, I'm just saying this is perhaps unlikely to provide more revenue from sales outside CA.