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Tesla Energy

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Re: Tesla Energy

#321

Post by antaviana »

While I think this announcement is great news, there are at least two caveats to keep in mind that can mine the long term value proposition:

- If there are many users, the peak/non-peak price differences (arbitrage) will disappear. This is because of supply/demand law.

- If solar energy/battery storage takes off, it will be heavily taxed. There is an impending "Sun tax" being implemented in Spain, that aims to make more expensive running a home solar source than taking power from the grid. If necessary, they will tax Lithium.

So the Tesla value proposition is in all cases short term.

Re: Tesla Energy

#322

Post by spiritplumber »

andrewtbham wrote: post #320
spiritplumber wrote: post #79

Funny that something called Tesla Energy brings back direct current to the home. I wonder how many people will catch that.

I wonder if technology becomes prevalent if we will see appliances change to run on DC.

At the very least it might make some sense to have a 5V and a 12V rail to charge stuff. USB(C) and car lighter socket.

Re: Tesla Energy

#323

Post by ph0rque »

tokenadult wrote: post #250
spiritplumber wrote: post #79

Funny that something called Tesla Energy brings back direct current to the home. I wonder how many people will catch that.

Less funny when you consider that the Tesla press release submitted here for discussion says, "The Powerwall consists of Tesla’s lithium-ion battery pack, liquid thermal control system and software that receives dispatch commands from a solar inverter." The inverter, of course, converts battery DC current to household AC current so that people can continue to enjoy AC power in their homes. http://electronics.howstuff…

That raises a question: if one were to build a new house with solar and battery integration present from the start, would it make sense to run DC appliances?

Re: Tesla Energy

#324

Post by lmm »

higherpurpose wrote: post #237
Vik1ng wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

If you're talking about cost/benefit that's a reasonable calculation to make.

If you're talking about being "disgusted" and wanting to completely avoid polluting at any cost, not so much. Sacred values and all that.

Re: Tesla Energy

#325

Post by freehunter »

tokenadult wrote: post #250
spiritplumber wrote: post #79

Funny that something called Tesla Energy brings back direct current to the home. I wonder how many people will catch that.

Less funny when you consider that the Tesla press release submitted here for discussion says, "The Powerwall consists of Tesla’s lithium-ion battery pack, liquid thermal control system and software that receives dispatch commands from a solar inverter." The inverter, of course, converts battery DC current to household AC current so that people can continue to enjoy AC power in their homes. http://electronics.howstuff…

Well obviously. Everything runs off AC, no one would buy this battery pack if it didn't have an inverter.

Re: Tesla Energy

#326

Post by omfg »

antaviana wrote: post #321

While I think this announcement is great news, there are at least two caveats to keep in mind that can mine the long term value proposition: - If there are many users, the peak/non-peak price differences (arbitrage) will disappear. This is because of supply/demand law. - If solar energy/battery storage takes off, it will be heavily taxed. There is an impending "Sun tax" being implemented in Spain, that aims to make m…

If Peak / Non-peak is smoothed out, one could argue prices may fall.

Re: Tesla Energy

#327

Post by bryondowd »

URSpider94 wrote: post #133
colinsidoti wrote: post #51

One thing that might go overlooked: Load shifting could, in theory, lower electric bills such that there's ROI without solar panels. --- Edit for why: On-demand power is expensive. "Spinning up" additional power during the day is more expensive than having certain types of power generation running all the time. In theory, pumping power into a battery at night during non-peak hours will cost less than consuming direct…

I could do this today. With my current time-of-use electric rate, I pay an average of $0.25/kWh more for peak power than I do for off-peak [the differential is larger in the summer, smaller in the winter]. If I shift 8kWh per day, then I would generate positive ROI in less than five years. Your edit is spot-on. Utilities typically use natural gas "peaker" plants to meet mid-day spikes in demand, while nuclear plants…

Is 8kWh/day realistic? I'm curious, honestly wouldn't know.

Seems like that would be charging and discharging 80% of the 10kWh battery's capacity every day. Would that affect lifespan? Also, it would seem to render the device less useful as a battery backup system during most of the day, since it would be mostly depleted.

Re: Tesla Energy

#328

Post by witty_username »

je_bailey wrote: post #298
watty wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it's immediately beneficial for just about everyone. I currently have a flat rate for kWh and no solar panel... and moving soon. It's not worth the $. In 6 months I'll be renting for a year, still not beneficial. Perhaps in a couple years I can purchase solar, a battery, and an energy system that can automate some demand shedding but we're talking about 1%ers here. In fact, I'd say it's only immediate…

You missed an additional subset of users. I live in an old neighborhood that experiences power outages and fluctuations once or twice a year. This is fantastic and something I will be installing as soon as I can. So older neighborhoods, rural areas with inconsistent power supply. All of these potentially benefit from this.

How is a power outage once or twice a year problematic? Did you mean once or twice a month?

(Just curious :)

Re: Tesla Energy

#329

Post by jonknee »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #167
frakkingcylons wrote: post #5

A notable beta user: AWS will be running a 4.8 megawatt hour pilot program with Tesla's batteries in the us-west-1 AZ (Northern California). Hopefully this allows AWS and other hosting providers to use intermittent, renewable sources of energy more often. EDIT: I'm guessing AWS will be using a cluster of 48 power packs (100 kilowatt hours each).

This might be a reason to move your production environment out of us-west-1 for a few years. I wouldn't want any experiments going on around my main servers.

If you don't want experiments going on around your servers you better host them in your own data center. Amazon is guaranteed to be running many experiments in all of their data centers (and not just with power, with the actual server hardware!).

Re: Tesla Energy

#330

Post by sswaner »

kragen wrote: post #280
Dylan16807 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if your main priority is carbon what do you do, use a wood oven?

Maybe a solar oven? Unlike Li-ion batteries and solar cells, you can make a solar oven without mass production and using materials fabrication technologies available 2000 years ago. (You can make it cheaper if you use modern mirrors instead of polished bronze.) Typical solar cells are 16% efficient; your pre-medieval-materials solar oven will be about 50% efficient.

Have you ever tried to bake in a solar oven? In anything less than ideal solar conditions baking either fails completely or takes a long time.
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