Live data from Hacker News

Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

forbes.com

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#51
post #9

Electricity will become cheaper thanks to renewable energies (Solar, Wind...) and energy storage improvements (Batteries). But, I think we should point out that those energies represent large investments at first. For instance, building solar electricity plants is very expensive, the same way as Wind power. Germany is a good example: they stopped nuclear plants to increase their renewable energy production but costs…

> But, I think we should point out that those energies represent large investments at first.

I think that's part of what Musk is saying will no longer be true in the near future.

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I anxiously await the plucky zoning committee that decides to make it a zoning requirement that all new roofs must be made of solar panels.

If you're a house owner in California, what economic motivation is there to not do it?

I don't use a ton of electricity so right now if i lease I save like $15 a month.. Not worth being tied into a 20 year lease. If I buy I think my payback is like 8 years which isn't bad just not worth it yet for me.

I'm betting on panel prices will continue to decrease in cost and become more efficient so the cost of buying them is more like 10k and not 25k where it is about now.

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#53
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I anxiously await the plucky zoning committee that decides to make it a zoning requirement that all new roofs must be made of solar panels.

If I were mayor, I would require new construction to have 1kw of grid intertied solar per unit.

A 1kW system is horribly inefficient. That's 4 modules, which even in series is not going to get you to grid voltage so you will have to use costly microinverters. Plus you have all the fixed costs of installation, inspection, switchgear, etc. that has to be amortized over a tiny amount of power. Silly. For most circumstances, 4-5kW is going to be the minimum economical installation. There are many people who know how to evaluate a particular site and customer needs to figure out what is and is not economical and how to accomplish that. The mayor, and you, probably are not among them.

This is why politicians need to stay away and let the market do its job. It's too easy to let ignorance or some temporary set of circumstances lead you to impose costly and harmful regulations with far-reaching effects.

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#54
post #17

I have a startup in solar software, and the big thing that I don't think people here realize is that 64% of the installed cost of solar in the U.S. is soft costs (i.e. not hardware)[1]. The industry is incredibly inefficient when it comes to customer acquisition, marketing, distribution, project development, permitting, monitoring, analytics. etc. There's a huge effort by the DOE[2] and the industry itself[3] to atta…

Thanks for the links, I was thinking about getting into Solar Energy Industry for a while now.

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#55
post #48

Its an interesting proposition, although I'm not sure that you can really make that leap with just solar, wind, and batteries. There is a lot of base load to make up for. I could see however individual houses become independent of the grid. And that will have tremendous benefits when things like storms hit, no longer knocking out power to residents, simply factories and office buildings and street lights. Presumably…

Almost none of the solar installations today can run with the grid down. Almost all are grid-tie because it is thousands of dollars cheaper.

Hmm, while your statement is technically correct it is also ignoring all of the hype around Tesla's "whole house battery" technology which is, as part of its positioning in the market, turning grid tied installations into more stand alone installations. And yes, it is "thousands of dollars" cheaper to do a grid tie system, and yet the regulatory changes are making it harder on home solar systems to recover costs (mostly because it shifts peak load costs toward the utility and away from the individual rate payer, the utilities are trying to avoid that).

And the article is discussing a "future" world where almost all individual houses are not grid tied, rather they are perhaps grid backed up, in the event that there isn't enough solar or wind to keep their house batteries up.

So in that world, where folks are converting their "old" grid tied system to the "new" grid independent systems, it is going to change other parts of the community that break when external events disrupt the grid. That will mean that communities will be less impacted by the "grid" getting knocked off line by a hurricane because their normal mode will be to not be on that grid. And that has some positive implications for community planners.

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#56
post #3

Utility grade solar already has a less then 8 year payback. For profit companies are setting up money making solar plants in the SW right now. Solar here. I applaud the Saudis for shutting off fracking in US. It was kinda like a fever that cleared the system of pathogens.

You are wrong on the Saudis: lowering the price of oil had the main effect of making most energy alternatives less interesting in the near future, effectively buying them some extra time. It also had the effect of making fracking too expensive, but I bet they didn't care much about it.

> lowering the price of oil had the main effect of making most energy alternatives less interesting in the near future

Only for vehicles; oil is not fungible between utility and transportation energy needs. Solar and wind compete against coal and natural gas (I concede natural gas prices are a function of US fracking, but natgas pricing has always been highly variable in the US).

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#57
post #24

Does anyone know what's the latest news about long-distance superconducting cables?

Its waiting on room temp superconductors I believe. Otherwise you have to cool a 1000km of cable and of course the material needs to be reasonable ductable. And dont hold your breath on room temperature superconductors, it may not even be possible...

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#58
post #17

I have a startup in solar software, and the big thing that I don't think people here realize is that 64% of the installed cost of solar in the U.S. is soft costs (i.e. not hardware)[1]. The industry is incredibly inefficient when it comes to customer acquisition, marketing, distribution, project development, permitting, monitoring, analytics. etc. There's a huge effort by the DOE[2] and the industry itself[3] to atta…

Sent an email to your startup's info address.

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#59

I think it is time for JB to take over as CEO so that Elon can spend more time at SpaceX (and still be chairman of Tesla).

Elon was asked about a replacement CEO in late 2014, he stated that there currently was no one in mind, and that the plan was to stay on as CEO till volume production of Model 3 and the Gigafactory, and then evaluate [1]. Of course, he may not have been at liberty to say the person in mind.

[1] https://youtu.be/FE4iFYqi4QU?t=7m25s

Re: Tesla CTO: Batteries and Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years

#60
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No particular tips on how to do it; but at least make sure you don't put too many in serial if you're at all concerned about fire safety. My father was once involved in a big lawsuit over fires caused by faulty junction boxes and he swore he'd never let the total wattage exceed say 500, max 800, or so watts for panels installed on a house. After all; it only takes a single slightly faulty contact and you essentially…

More generally, you need to be aware of the ratings and proper installation methods for the equipment and materials you are using. Nearly all PV modules today are rated for a 600V system voltage, as are most combiner boxes and common wire types. Not all breakers are, though! Higher voltage requires higher-rated and sometimes more expensive equipment as well as more careful work, but it allows longer wire runs with le…

I'm not that up to date on the whole solar thing but I guess he then probably recommended not exceeding 600V (not W) for private uses.

The lawsuits were over high end equipment with higher ratings (I'm guessing voltage-wise) that had a small possible weakness which, when combined with installation which was too rough, ended up causing fires in hay-barns all over France.

Post reply on HN