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Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

theguardian.com

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Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#101

Post by moreati »

imron wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #6

Can Tesla deliver the batteries in the next 100 days? Tesla had a battery shortage last quarter when production couldn't keep up, and had to delay some car deliveries.[1] With Model 3 deliveries starting, is Tesla's battery production sufficient? [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/03/technology/tesla-battery-car...

When this first hit the news a few months back, Musk said they'd do it on 90 days or it'd be free. That's a pretty big incentive to get it done quickly.

I don't think it was ever 90 days, here's the original tweet

"Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?" -- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/840032197637685249

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#102

Post by danmaz74 »

eecc wrote: post #83
danmaz74 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who pays the cost when you need to decommission a nuclear power plant? I'm not against nuclear in general, but accounting should be apples-to-apples.

I'm afraid you didn't read the sarcasm in "wind turbine melts down". The way I see it, the op was taking a dig at nukes

Ouch. You're probably right :)

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#103

Post by owebmaster »

tominous wrote: post #42
jdietrich wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failure to act on climate change has a game-theoretic cost. Taking unilateral action massively improves your negotiating position and reduces the cost for other countries to reduce their emissions via economies of scale. One country taking decisive action could trigger a chain reaction of political pressure. Australia has a horrendous wildfire problem. The frequency and severity of wildfires has drastically increased…

Paradoxically, more frequent fires can often mean less severe fires. That's the rationale behind controlled burns and traditional aboriginal land management practices. And because this is Hacker News, have a play with the simulation hosted at Fourmilab: http://www.fourmilab.ch/cellab/manual/rules.html#Forest

Not paradoxically. No tree burns two times, so in the next fire you'll have less burning material. This is obvious, and bad.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#104

Post by petra »

cinquemb wrote: post #95
petra wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> economics of a thing can be decoupled from politics, Did i imply that ? i just said that the australian project has little relevance to companies who do seek energy storage, because their reasons, motivations, are different, and this greatly affects cost sensitivity. But you know what? i don't understand politics. Maybe Australian Politicians didn't expose the low, low cost of stored kwh using this system, because…

> i just said that the australian project has little relevance to companies who do seek energy storage, because their reasons, motivations, are different, and this greatly affects cost sensitivity. >> All i'm saying: If there's a real economical solution for the big problem of energy storage, real deployments are the test, not politically/risk driven deployments, or psychological/marketing[1] driven deployments(like…

>> the australian project has little relevance to companies who do seek energy storage, because their reasons, motivations, are different,

If you'll read about the industry, you'll find this claim generally true.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#105

Post by adwn »

keganunderwood wrote: post #86
LoSboccacc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you think China is going to "buy" the technology, you're not paying attention

Yup, just look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Railways_CRH380A Although I see it as a positive. The money spent to "buy" technology is essentially wasted money.

> Although I see it as a positive. The money spent to "buy" technology is essentially wasted money.

Is money spent to buy software also "wasted money"? How are you going to pay the engineers developing this technology?

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#106

Post by dsr_ »

shoo wrote: post #37
jdietrich wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failure to act on climate change has a game-theoretic cost. Taking unilateral action massively improves your negotiating position and reduces the cost for other countries to reduce their emissions via economies of scale. One country taking decisive action could trigger a chain reaction of political pressure. Australia has a horrendous wildfire problem. The frequency and severity of wildfires has drastically increased…

> Failure to act on climate change has a game-theoretic cost. Taking unilateral action massively improves your negotiating position and reduces the cost for other countries to reduce their emissions via economies of scale Thanks - I wasn't aware of that. Are there any books / articles that go into this in more detail and might be accessible to someone with a decent math + comp sci education but no knowledge of game t…

You might want The Prisoner's Dilemma, by William Poundstone, and if that intrigues you, Games of Strategy by Dixit and Skeath is a well-known textbook.

Game theory has important effects on economics and marketing, as well as the obvious politics.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#107

Post by lathiat »

willholloway wrote: post #28
burntrelish1273 wrote: post #3

FYI: 129 MWh would be about 1300 42U-style racks for batteries alone. Source: there's a guy in socal (Jehu Garcia) building a reclaimed peaker 1 MWh pack in about 10 racks from used batteries and equipment (50 kW 480VAC inverter) on the cheap in order to store energy off-peak (plus possibly charge using solar) and use it at peak supplemented by grid power. This is how manufacturing and other heavy industry / large el…

Jehu Garcia's Youtube videos are definitely worth checking out, the guy is doing cool things with 18650 lithium ion cells. He converted a VW bus into an electric vehicle. My main takeaway after watching his videos and others in the same vein is that lithium ion battery packs are the gasoline of the 21st century. You can build 18650 packs for electric bikes, scooters, boats etc... or build your own Power Wall type hom…

HBPowerWall is also good. Australian guy with a 40KwH wall made from old laptop batteries. Lots of good content.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#108

Post by sametmax »

senectus1 wrote: post #54
sitkack wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who pays the cost when the wind turbine melts down?

the same process for when a coal fired power station breaks down. the price of regular maintenance and in the event of catastrophic failure, insurance.

It was a joke.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#109

Post by prawn »

sanxiyn wrote: post #70
jussij wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it seems they already have it. The Snowy Mountains (the location of the hydro) is a very long way away from South Australia and not even in the same state. So for SA location is a problem. But I think the bigger problem with Snowy Hydro 2.0 is time and the cost. The Snowy Hydro 2.0 feasibility study has only just begun and will be finished in December of this year. If that study finds the project is feasible, i…

Why is it important that something is done quickly? As I understand from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout it was caused by once-in-50-year event. I understand political urgency, but technically there doesn't seem to be anything urgent.

Virtually no voter appreciates the technical lack of urgency. One large voting bloc would be thinking "Labor has dropped the ball on electricity and must be removed!" and another would excuse a project like this as at least heading in the right direction.

(I'm South Australian.)

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#110

Post by yk »

sanxiyn wrote: post #21

Why is Snowy Hydro 2.0 "ridiculous" and "silly"? What exactly is advantage of battery over pumped storage? Big problem with pumped storage is that it needs specific location, but it seems they already have it. As I understand, pumped storage is cheaper, more energy efficient, more mature technology. I understand battery swithes faster. What else?

In general the problem with hydropower is, that it is the best energy source if you have the location. Therefore the good locations were developed early on, Hoover dam in the 1930ies, Aswan dam in the 1960ies, and now we are left with marginal locations. In a way we already reached peak hydro.
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