Are there other players other than Tesla making these?
The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
11–20 of 81 posts
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#12Anyone else starting to get the feeling that the idea of "base load" power was a scam ? By "base load" I mean the insurmountable blocker for renewable adoption. The storage industry has already proven it can basically double national installed capacity from one year to the next: It did so in 2023 and 2022, and in 2021 it more than tripled the previous year’s tally. The continuation of this trend just gets more impres…
I've been in your boots for 15 years, and I barely convinced anyone. Even my thermal panels are viewed with suspiction, and people don't believe me when I told them my hot water come from them with a little help from an electric heater in the winter. They pay themselves once per year, easily. Frustratingly, the more common doubt is "if it's so good, how are there so few people doing it?" At this point I gave up. I en…
Frustratingly, the more common doubt is "if it's so good, how are there so few people doing it?"
Do you think that 15 years back it was prohibitive from a cost perspective now? Was it always this economically viable? I mean ~ $200 a panel, it's a true no brainer, maybe the initial outlay was a little too much for people way back when?
On the other hand, I guess with peaking electricity prices in many parts of the world, it would've easily paid itself off by now for most people.
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#13Anyone else starting to get the feeling that the idea of "base load" power was a scam ? By "base load" I mean the insurmountable blocker for renewable adoption. The storage industry has already proven it can basically double national installed capacity from one year to the next: It did so in 2023 and 2022, and in 2021 it more than tripled the previous year’s tally. The continuation of this trend just gets more impres…
I've been in your boots for 15 years, and I barely convinced anyone. Even my thermal panels are viewed with suspiction, and people don't believe me when I told them my hot water come from them with a little help from an electric heater in the winter. They pay themselves once per year, easily. Frustratingly, the more common doubt is "if it's so good, how are there so few people doing it?" At this point I gave up. I en…
Every time I bring up that subject, people get aggravated and point out that lower voltage means larger cables, which is true, but I wonder if the tradeoff of paying more for thicker cables is worth the simplicity it brings.
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#14Anyone else starting to get the feeling that the idea of "base load" power was a scam ? By "base load" I mean the insurmountable blocker for renewable adoption. The storage industry has already proven it can basically double national installed capacity from one year to the next: It did so in 2023 and 2022, and in 2021 it more than tripled the previous year’s tally. The continuation of this trend just gets more impres…
There can be extenuating circumstances. Adding panels would void my roof’s warranty and I couldn’t afford a broken roof if something were to happen.
I’m good at math. I can see that solar would save me buckets of money for a small investment. It’s just that my hands are tied for other reasons.
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#15Are there other players other than Tesla making these?
BYD, Hitachi, Siemens (energy).
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#16Anyone else starting to get the feeling that the idea of "base load" power was a scam ? By "base load" I mean the insurmountable blocker for renewable adoption. The storage industry has already proven it can basically double national installed capacity from one year to the next: It did so in 2023 and 2022, and in 2021 it more than tripled the previous year’s tally. The continuation of this trend just gets more impres…
I've been in your boots for 15 years, and I barely convinced anyone. Even my thermal panels are viewed with suspiction, and people don't believe me when I told them my hot water come from them with a little help from an electric heater in the winter. They pay themselves once per year, easily. Frustratingly, the more common doubt is "if it's so good, how are there so few people doing it?" At this point I gave up. I en…
> my thermal panels
How cold is it where you're at? I'm weighing putting in a new tankless boiler system, as well as a rooftop PV, but thermal solar might be a better bet.
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#17Anyone else starting to get the feeling that the idea of "base load" power was a scam ? By "base load" I mean the insurmountable blocker for renewable adoption. The storage industry has already proven it can basically double national installed capacity from one year to the next: It did so in 2023 and 2022, and in 2021 it more than tripled the previous year’s tally. The continuation of this trend just gets more impres…
I don't think it's a scam, scams requires malice, and it's sufficient that people don't expect exponential change even when it's happening reliably for ages — after all, even when people do learn about exponential growth, many say things like that it has a "knee" or reaches an "inflection point".
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#18Anyone else starting to get the feeling that the idea of "base load" power was a scam ? By "base load" I mean the insurmountable blocker for renewable adoption. The storage industry has already proven it can basically double national installed capacity from one year to the next: It did so in 2023 and 2022, and in 2021 it more than tripled the previous year’s tally. The continuation of this trend just gets more impres…
The US consumes approximately 4 trillion terawatts/hour of electricity. If this prediction holds true we will have 14 gigawatts of storage this year. You do the math and you tell me whether base load generation is still an issue or not.
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#19How long does the typical battery last before it needs significant new investment (major maintenance or replacement)? In other words, how long before we need to install another 30 GW not to increase capacity, but to maintain it? I'm not a pessimist but I know that at this stage in an adoption cycle, it's all gain, but that's not the long-term reality. I'm wondering what the long-term looks like. In part, if the capac…
Tesla Megapacks come with a 15-year "no defect" and "energy retention" warranty. A 10 or 20 year "performance guarantee" is available for an additional cost. (an example of Li-Ion based storage, I assume it won't differ wildly with other producers)
I think they can in principle last longer if used well. You can control the temperature, you can use weather forecast (as part of some network-wide forecast of future required capacity) to decide how much you should charge the batteries. You'd use the "unhealthy" charging/discharging only in extreme situations, while in the day-to-day cycles you'd keep the batteries within the healthy voltage range.
Re: The US grid battery fleet is about to double – again
#20Gigawatts are not a unit of energy.... something something zalgo.
Installed capacity is sometimes measured by power output rather than energy storage capacity. Both measures are relevant.
And yet only one is ever mentioned when batteries come up, despite the context being heavily implied to be "energy" not "power".