231–240 of 590 posts
I mean if power stations only had to produce N/kW/h at a constant rate to power every home in the region then would there be any energy savings? Instead of the typical, scale back at night, boost up during the day system?
If we could calculate the energy usage of every home down to the Watt then surely there wouldn't be any waste?
Nice, that came in lower than I was expecting. I was thinking $5K for the 7kWh unit. Of course that is the "installers" price so who knows what those folks will consider the 'retail' price. My wife still has her solar installer certification so we could presumably get one that way. It also makes for a really interesting opportunity for grid tied solar inverters. Now you want the inverter to power the house first, the…
On the grid tied solar inverter front - the spec sheet says the battery voltage is 350~450 V, so we're looking at 108 lithium ion cells (25 x 18650 cells?) at 400 VDC nominal. This is quite different from typical lead acid battery pack voltage of 12, 24, or 48VDC that's used for battery backup storage, so a lot of existing solar battery storage infrastructure may not even work... this means that people may need to bu…
1. How is this different from a UPS? (Similar capacities can be obtained for less money.)
2. How many cycles can we expect to get out of these? (One assumes these are designed to be cycled more often than a UPS)
3. What are the risks when temperature is outside the operating range? (If non-negligable, the stated operating range of -20C to +43C limits use in some applications, such as field stations without heating (or AC, depending on locale).
4. Is this technology viable on the scale of an entire powergrid? If it's advantageous for individual users, one would think economy of scale would make this more efficient to implement grid-wide.
5. Do these present an additional hazard in the case of fires, floods, etc.?
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But they could now, and most deep cycle lead acid batteries are flooded, not sealed, which means they have to be ventilated to prevent hydrogen explosions hazards. Not so with Tesla's offering.
Fine. 4.8kW Li-Ion battery for USD$3,278 1.9kW for USD$1,678. My point is that Tesla isn't really doing anything really unique here. Sure, they're giving it more press than anyone really has before, but the products aren't especially cheap, innovative or special. http://ironedison.com/12-volt-lithium-battery-for-solar
What this product has is much better luxury marketing, and as part of that much better user experience.
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"and can only provide 2kW output." only 2kW? 2kW is enough to power any residential, single-family house for 95-98% of the time; you only need (a little bit) more than that at very short (few minutes) peak intervals - when heating up an oven, or some cycles of doing laundry. A second unit would provide that headroom, and otherwise (when the extra $5k for a second unit is prohibitive) you could still draw from the gri…
I use incandescent lights. They produce a much more pleasant spectrum than “white” CFLs or LEDs.
The main advantage of Lithium Ion is the high energy density which is good for reducing the weight of laptops and electric cars but doesn't seem that useful in a house, especially when you compare it with cheaper and longer lasting battery technologies. This feels more like them trying to find a new business line for their existing technology than coming up with the perfect technology for the home market.
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Some people (like me) are simply unwilling to keep using carbon-based sources of energy. At some point it just feels awful to be contributing to such a terrible problem. I'm counting the days till I can sell my worn out petrol car and get an electric car. If I had a home and dollars, I'd want one of these batteries.
I feel like a backup generator is the last place where I would make my decisions based on the environment. I mean how long is it actually going to be active? Also batteries aren't exactly environment friendly either.
Kind of a straw man argument. They are still far more environmentally friendly than gas or coal.
The maximum temperature will be an issue here in Australia. In a typical place where it will be mounted, i.e. the garage, the temperatures will readily get over 40, close to 50 during summer. I could see this also being a problem in places like Nevada and Arizona in the USA.
If your garage is getting to 50°C you've got a major insulation problem! Where are you located? In both cases if min and max operating temperature are an issue it may be best to install in an FIP enclosure and use ducting to keep the enclosure and an optimal temperature.
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People say that, but from what I've heard there is plenty of lithium in the world to increase use 20% every year for 30 years before we need to get more creative in how we mine it. That's a huge total increase and means that electric cars totally are scalable. Do you have information supporting the idea that electric cars aren't scalable? My understanding is that they definitely are scalable.
Charging is where the scaling problems come in. If everybody in your neighborhood plugs in their Tesla at their home at night and/or at their office during the day, it will likely cause brownouts and blackouts in areas with grid service that's already marginal for current demand. Hence Musks's interest in load-shifting technology.
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You still need to ship it inside the US to the boat dock, and then pay to put it on a boat, and then pay to ship it from the australian dock to the homeowner.
Freight costs are so cheap they're essentially negligible. There's a reason why it's cost-effective to make stuff in China, and ship it all the way across the Pacific to the US, instead of just making them in the US.