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Tesla Energy

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Re: Tesla Energy

#421

Post by ZoFreX »

ams6110 wrote: post #337
ZoFreX wrote: post #261

This is a three-pronged stroke of genius: 1) Immediate benefits to just about anyone. If you have your own solar panels, you need this (or something like it). Even if you don't, you can benefit by drawing more power during cheaper off-peak times. 2) If lots of people get in on this, we'll have the storage capacity we need on the grid to be more dependent on renewable energy. Lack of storage capacity is one of the big…

It's a good idea; I would place it more in the "obvious" category than "stroke of genius" but it's clearly got a market. I think that the technology to do (2) at grid scale is far from ready. The grid was built to distribute power from generating stations out to users. It was not designed to have power flowing into it from thousands of dispersed battery packs at the tips of the network (i.e. residential service point…

Your point is valid, but it's still beneficial to the grid even now to have a bunch of batteries on it: you won't get power flowing into the grid from them, but it does mean output power can be varied a lot more with batteries soaking up some of the difference.

Re: Tesla Energy

#422

Post by bronz »

billiam wrote: post #405

I am just going to cut and paste my previous comment on Musk. The Musk M.O: 1. Identify industry with big inefficiencies that depends on huge government subsidies. That's cars, commercial space vehicles, mass transit and now: colonizing another planet with the 0.1%. 2. Convince the media and envious government officials you are Tom Swift, boy inventor. Have these governments fight over how many billions to give you t…

his reasons: load shifting, self consumption, backup, (saving the planet from global warming)

Re: Tesla Energy

#423

Post by ddingus »

Germany has implemented so much solar they can overload the EU grid.

Batteries are the next thing for them. Many of the comments here aimed at the States make sense. Use cases aren't as broad here for many reasons.

But, who says these have to be sold here?

Great move, IMHO. Storage is a growing concern. Most all of the renewables suffer from variances in production.

Elon is likely thinking globally. Just get storage production moving and boot strapped into self-sufficiency. Doesn't matter who buys it, just that they do.

Costs drop, scale improves on things, and he's positioned to take advantage of materials science as it yields better / more diverse options. Think of those aluminum batteries just announced at Stanford. The energy density is lower, but they charge very quickly.

If those prove viable, they can be added to the Tesla catalog, and if their life time is high enough, might just be perfect for augmenting things like solar and wind.

Re: Tesla Energy

#425

Post by billiam »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #412
billiam wrote: post #405

I am just going to cut and paste my previous comment on Musk. The Musk M.O: 1. Identify industry with big inefficiencies that depends on huge government subsidies. That's cars, commercial space vehicles, mass transit and now: colonizing another planet with the 0.1%. 2. Convince the media and envious government officials you are Tom Swift, boy inventor. Have these governments fight over how many billions to give you t…

Your comments on his reasons are clearly counter-factual: Load shifting on a consumer scale has been happening for decades in various places around the world (e.g. cheap nuclear energy at night powering storage heaters) Self-consumption: in a grid increasingly fed by solar power all those peaks hit at the same time and there's been multiple recent news stories about power prices going negative at those peaks. Backup…

Not at all trying to pick a fight. But:

>Load shifting on a consumer scale has been happening for decades in various places around the world (e.g. cheap nuclear energy at night powering storage heaters)

Sorry, but as a consumer I pay the same rate day and night, and I think most in the US are like me. I personally have no incentive for load-shifting. Why do I need PowerWall?

>Self-consumption: in a grid increasingly fed by solar power all those peaks hit at the same time and there's been multiple recent news stories about power prices going negative at those peaks.

Solar, including concentrated solar which is outside this discussion, is currently 0.48% of all US electricity generation. Not a big effect for many years, unless one of the other Musk businesses (Solar City) gets a big boost.

>Backup - no-one said anything about "true" natural disasters. Backup from short power outages is already an established market in many outlying areas and a fringe benefit for almost anyone. And no-one said that you had to buy it and use it for this single purpose.

Okay, but it seems like a pretty expensive way to ride out a few hours of blackout.

> This whole area has been predicted as a growing market for years, there's others in this thread complaining that it's nothing new compared with less famous competitors, so complaints that it's a product dreamt up to soak up subsidies is a bit odd.

I've been called worse, but my point here is that these predicted schemes haven't taken off because they would depend on MASSIVE subsidies, and Mr. Musk does dream big.

The main point is that everyone should probably have a battery in their garage, but that battery should be in a car, and since business is not working out so well for Musk he is trying to access another source of regulated government support. The economics/policy of electric cars seem much better than home electricity storage, and all the benefits of PowerWall, if they materialize, can and hopefully will be delivered by lithium under your hood. Battery-powered cars will take over America, I just doubt most of those batteries will be made by Tesla.

Re: Tesla Energy

#426

Post by kamaal »

thewarrior wrote: post #134

Wow This thing could sell like crazy in places like India. 10 kwH is enough to power an Indian home for more than a day and at 3500 dollars most middle class people would consider buying it seeing how frequent power cuts here are.

$3500 is 217000 Rs and $5000 is 310000 Rs. That's simple too expensive for a Battery pack. The prices need to be far lower with a good ROI for this to work in India.

Re: Tesla Energy

#427

Post by [deleted] »

voodoomagicman wrote: post #413
danielweber wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's about $10,000 worth of work in a battery. It's not just a hunk of metal, it goes through a very complicated and energy intensive creation process. The cost of the raw lithium is about 1% of the cost of the battery. It's engineering it in a very precise way that's expensive.

The battery costs $3000 - that is likely a cap on the cost of the work involved in producing it.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Energy

#428

Post by willholloway »

chadgeidel wrote: post #409
willholloway wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I've learned more about heat pumps I've been wondering why we all use air-source cooling for central A/C. We are cooling our condensers with hot summer time air when the temperature is much lower just four feet under the yard. The energy requirements would drop way down by cooling the condenser with a water ground loop. Ground loops are seen as expensive for installation, but I don't understand why. It's just plas…

I'm just spitballing here, but one has to be concerned about how much heat soaking the ground loop can take before its effectiveness goes down significantly. Dirt is a pretty good insulator. How much will the "ambient dirt temp" increase after X hours of running AC? How long does it take for the heat to dissipate?

That is why its critical to properly size the system. With the right size loop it works well. Also if you figure an ambient air temperature of 80-100 you can raise the dirt temp a lot before its as warm as the air.

Re: Tesla Energy

#429

Post by feld »

danielweber wrote: post #395
jws wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your insurance company allow you to keep one liter of gasoline in your garage? It has the same energy content as the Powerwall, is insanely flammable, is frequently implicated is home fires, and regularly causes human deaths. (Ok, a burning lithium battery will release more energy than its storage capacity, but I'm not finding a nice reference, Tesla knows all about containing cells to prevent chain reactions, a…

Gas fumes are very flammable, but the gasoline itself will flow down and out of my garage, and the fire would be very easy to contain with a simple garden hose. A gas can also will not light on fire just because it gets hit with a car. It would take malicious use of a gas can -- splashing it on a wall and then lighting it on fire -- to match the default configuration of a Powerwall.

I don't think you use the same gasoline as the rest of the planet if that's your experience.

Re: Tesla Energy

#430

Post by scott_karana »

yakuzanobu wrote: post #182
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.

Or Tesla laughing from beyond the grave at the fact that a company named after him is getting the credit for bringing DC to the home?

That's the joke.
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