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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

#91

Post by poooogles »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #85
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just to inform the discussion wrt. timescales and magnitudes of power variability, here is a real-time plot of power generation in the UK showing daily/weekly/monthly variations in consumption and in production from nuclear, coal, gas turbines, wind, bio and (pumped) hydroelectric. This is with zero battery storage on the grid (I believe). http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

Pumped and normal hydroelectric are split on this.

<3 Dinorwig. The tour there is pretty cool if you get the opportunity.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#92

Post by ghshephard »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #90
toomuchtodo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I thought about this some more, and I realised, Tesla and other EV manufacturers better be praying that this is not a financially viable replacement for gas turbine peakers in general. Otherwise there will be a big jump in demand for batteries, as power companies will be looking for hundreds of GWh of battery capacity. If they make a yearly profit for the power company that's significant enough to warrant the CAPEX o…

I recall reading quite a while ago that Tesla said that they see themselves primarily as an energy company. Looking for a citation...

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#93

Post by afarrell »

WalterBright wrote: post #71
wlesieutre wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial users do see this, with higher costs for energy in peak hours as well as "demand charges" based on their highest rate of consumption (typically measured in 15 minute increments). Charging more for those gives an economic incentive to trim down the energy consumption bursts that require peaker plants to run. Buildings can design load leveling into their systems with things like thermal energy storage that s…

People have always tried to come up with a reason to connect the refrigerator (and other appliances) to the internet. Finally, we have a reason - to moderate the power consumption of the refrigerator based on the spot price.

Do you trust the software industry to keep others' from turning off your refrigerator for the lulz?

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#94

Post by manicdee »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #90
toomuchtodo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I thought about this some more, and I realised, Tesla and other EV manufacturers better be praying that this is not a financially viable replacement for gas turbine peakers in general. Otherwise there will be a big jump in demand for batteries, as power companies will be looking for hundreds of GWh of battery capacity. If they make a yearly profit for the power company that's significant enough to warrant the CAPEX o…

The batteries used for cars are different to the batteries used for power banks.

Tesla is selling internally to themselves, and already has production set up for batteries for stationary power.

The best outcome is for demand to ramp up, keeping prices high long enough to fund the rest of the construction of the gigafactory.

No praying required.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#96

Post by marvin »

ccorda wrote: post #67
KamiCrit wrote: post #52

I love Tesla and Elon Musk as much as the next person. But isn't it a little crazy how much Elon is betting on 18650 lithium ion batteries. I really hope I'm mistaken and they have a homemade battery package made up.

They do (although only slightly different), the 2170: http://fortune.com/2016/07/27/tesla-bigger-battery-gigafacto...

Fascinating, thanks for this link. This is a pretty obscure but heavy decision.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#97

Post by manicdee »

unepipe wrote: post #72
toomuchtodo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tesla is not producing peakers, correct?

Tesla is producing battery storage, which is either a peaker plant or backup for failed transmission lines, take your pick.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#98

Post by azernik »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #90
toomuchtodo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I thought about this some more, and I realised, Tesla and other EV manufacturers better be praying that this is not a financially viable replacement for gas turbine peakers in general. Otherwise there will be a big jump in demand for batteries, as power companies will be looking for hundreds of GWh of battery capacity. If they make a yearly profit for the power company that's significant enough to warrant the CAPEX o…

Tesla seems to be making the opposite gamble - that the grid-attached storage market will give the large-battery market economies of scale and help the EV market (and the other way around). They're building a very-large-scale battery factory, and probably cannot utilize it fully just on building their own cars.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#99

Post by semi-extrinsic »

manicdee wrote: post #94
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about this some more, and I realised, Tesla and other EV manufacturers better be praying that this is not a financially viable replacement for gas turbine peakers in general. Otherwise there will be a big jump in demand for batteries, as power companies will be looking for hundreds of GWh of battery capacity. If they make a yearly profit for the power company that's significant enough to warrant the CAPEX o…

The batteries used for cars are different to the batteries used for power banks. Tesla is selling internally to themselves, and already has production set up for batteries for stationary power. The best outcome is for demand to ramp up, keeping prices high long enough to fund the rest of the construction of the gigafactory. No praying required.

Musk has stated publically that they're betting the company on the battery price coming down for the Model 3 to be profitable. That's why they're building the Gigafactory, to reach $100/kWh. If suddenly power companies start buying lots of batteries, and prices stabilise at or above today's levels, it would mean (by implication) that the Model 3 won't be profitable (at least initially).

Sure car batteries and power banks are different, but they're all Li-ion and I believe Tesla (unlike others) is packing 18650's in both.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#100

Post by azernik »

WalterBright wrote: post #73
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.

Oh, I disagree. A/C is very power hungry, and can be adjusted to cool the house lower than normal during cheap power times and let it go a bit higher during expensive power times. It can also "pre-cool" when power is cheaper. The same goes for an electric water heater. The charger for your Tesla can also adjust when it charges based on power prices. The dishwasher/washer/dryer can be set to come on at night when the…

This has been the promise of "smart-grid" attached devices; the implementation hasn't caught up with the dream yet, but in theory, yeah, there are a lot of very elastic loads that can be used to smooth out the demand curve, or to match a jittery supply curve.
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