EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
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EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
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Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#2I don't understand the discrepancy between EV kWh and house battery kWh.
Some cars have > 100 kWh capacity. Why do I pay > 1000$ per kWh for a house battery? At some point it is cheaper to just buy a car, even if you would never drive it. A Tesla Powerwall has 13 or so kWh? Why don't they use the car battery with nearly 10 times as much capacity?
It is just unit prices that are far better for cars? Is the charge/discharge speed relevant? Is the technology different? Are the capacities for cars just fake? Preferably I would want 200kWh or more capacity for my home.
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#3I don't understand the discrepancy between EV kWh and house battery kWh. Some cars have > 100 kWh capacity. Why do I pay > 1000$ per kWh for a house battery? At some point it is cheaper to just buy a car, even if you would never drive it. A Tesla Powerwall has 13 or so kWh? Why don't they use the car battery with nearly 10 times as much capacity? It is just unit prices that are far better for cars? Is the charge/disc…
House batteries are a much smaller market than batteries for EVs (at least right now). They also have other supporting components, safety features, etc. that add to the price. Since they’re normally installed as part of a solar install, they also usually qualify for a tax credit (between federal and state this can be over 50%) which further drives up the price because the vendor is able to capture a large chunk of the tax credit as profit.
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#4I don't understand the discrepancy between EV kWh and house battery kWh. Some cars have > 100 kWh capacity. Why do I pay > 1000$ per kWh for a house battery? At some point it is cheaper to just buy a car, even if you would never drive it. A Tesla Powerwall has 13 or so kWh? Why don't they use the car battery with nearly 10 times as much capacity? It is just unit prices that are far better for cars? Is the charge/disc…
$300/kWh for home storage is readily available.
E.g. https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-ll-lithium-battery-24v-200ah/
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#5I don't understand the discrepancy between EV kWh and house battery kWh. Some cars have > 100 kWh capacity. Why do I pay > 1000$ per kWh for a house battery? At some point it is cheaper to just buy a car, even if you would never drive it. A Tesla Powerwall has 13 or so kWh? Why don't they use the car battery with nearly 10 times as much capacity? It is just unit prices that are far better for cars? Is the charge/disc…
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Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#6I don't understand the discrepancy between EV kWh and house battery kWh. Some cars have > 100 kWh capacity. Why do I pay > 1000$ per kWh for a house battery? At some point it is cheaper to just buy a car, even if you would never drive it. A Tesla Powerwall has 13 or so kWh? Why don't they use the car battery with nearly 10 times as much capacity? It is just unit prices that are far better for cars? Is the charge/disc…
Part of it is cars get a bunch of free tax money, but most of it is that cars were at the front of the queue and locked prices in ahead of time (before the self same orders pushed prices up) and they have actual pressure to compete.
There are cheaper products, but reliability and trustworthyness is an issue. A good budget offering may decide to sell out their rep or start charging premium prices.
Budget offerings are about $250/kWh right now, or there are some for about $350 with cold weather protection.
In a few more years markets will mature a little and the price gap will be smaller.
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#7I don't understand the discrepancy between EV kWh and house battery kWh. Some cars have > 100 kWh capacity. Why do I pay > 1000$ per kWh for a house battery? At some point it is cheaper to just buy a car, even if you would never drive it. A Tesla Powerwall has 13 or so kWh? Why don't they use the car battery with nearly 10 times as much capacity? It is just unit prices that are far better for cars? Is the charge/disc…
House batteries are a much smaller market than batteries for EVs (at least right now). They also have other supporting components, safety features, etc. that add to the price. Since they’re normally installed as part of a solar install, they also usually qualify for a tax credit (between federal and state this can be over 50%) which further drives up the price because the vendor is able to capture a large chunk of th…
Actually they require less safety features (they don't need to be crash-safe) and can use heavier batteries and components. Which should make them cheaper than EV's batteries in theory.
But that market is in early stages with all associated downsides of early adoption, I agree with that.
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
House batteries are a much smaller market than batteries for EVs (at least right now). They also have other supporting components, safety features, etc. that add to the price. Since they’re normally installed as part of a solar install, they also usually qualify for a tax credit (between federal and state this can be over 50%) which further drives up the price because the vendor is able to capture a large chunk of th…
Actually they require less safety features (they don't need to be crash-safe) and can use heavier batteries and components. Which should make them cheaper than EV's batteries in theory. But that market is in early stages with all associated downsides of early adoption, I agree with that.
There are other features for a home battery. There are shutoffs. Each job is a bit custom on the install + electrician work. Retail markup.
You can use your car battery - though you will degrade that car battery much faster which is probably the battery you want to have better performance.
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#9Cool, but will the energy company pay for the wear and tear? Do you get paid extra if you promise to not use your car between hours X and Y?
Re: EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage
#10Aren't people wary about using their very expensive car batteries for the grid? E.g. imagine you plug in your phone for the night, but instead of a single top up change it is now constantly discharging and charging again. Lifetime of pocket sized batteries is not too great even now, and in such scenario they will go bust 2-3 times faster, in year instead of 3 or so. Also discharge swings would be probably much bigger. Instead of using say 30% of the battery per day in normal use cycle, maybe not even every day, you will now see multiple 0%-100% charge cycles daily.
New battery for small car costs 13-20k$, so if its lifetime will be shortened from I don't know, say 10 years, to 3 years, then electric company need to compensate owners accordingly and I highly doubt they will pay even 10% of that sum over 3 years.