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Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

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Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#11

Post by pg_bot »

I'm trying to think of the second order effects of solar and battery storage if it becomes cheap enough to run your entire house without the grid. Wouldn't it make sense to design houses with DC power from the ground up? Why go through the inefficient inverter if you are generating DC from a solar panel and using DC power internally in all of your appliances?

Assuming $3-5 per watt fully installed and a 6 kWh solar panel array. Plus and additional $10k worth of batteries, you should be able to run most houses 24/7/365 off solar power. So a $40k investment should be around what you need to generate all the power for your home for ~25 years. (Assuming you average 30 kWh used per day) This is pretty close to being a no brainer for certain areas of the country with high electricity prices. (California, Hawaii)

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#12

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

briffle wrote: post #10
CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I would classify that as a home battery, but it does indeed seem much more reasonably priced. I don't know if I can find a local installer selling this or anything else in the same price/kWh category. With inverters and solar panels I don't have this problem.

They are literally used as home batteries for many people that currently live off-grid. Yes, you would need an inverter as well. Just like you would for any kind of device to store 120V/240V AC power as 12/24/48V DC power. (Both that site I linked to and the other poster have lots and lots of inverters that can be tied to grid, and solar, and carey enough power to run your entire home for < $2k

I wouldn't call off-grid a typical home situation either, it's just something that is not done here. I mean I can go to any local installer and get solar panels and inverters that are reasonably priced, but with batteries that's just not the case.

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#13

Post by snapplebobapple »

pg_bot wrote: post #11

I'm trying to think of the second order effects of solar and battery storage if it becomes cheap enough to run your entire house without the grid. Wouldn't it make sense to design houses with DC power from the ground up? Why go through the inefficient inverter if you are generating DC from a solar panel and using DC power internally in all of your appliances? Assuming $3-5 per watt fully installed and a 6 kWh solar p…

Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid in the city (it certainly is in my home city in Canada). I bet a lot of stuff would go DC in this case (i.e. lighting) I suspect appliances would stay AC because they would put a huge premium on dc appliances just because they can.

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#14

Post by joshspankit »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #13
pg_bot wrote: post #11

I'm trying to think of the second order effects of solar and battery storage if it becomes cheap enough to run your entire house without the grid. Wouldn't it make sense to design houses with DC power from the ground up? Why go through the inefficient inverter if you are generating DC from a solar panel and using DC power internally in all of your appliances? Assuming $3-5 per watt fully installed and a 6 kWh solar p…

Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid in the city (it certainly is in my home city in Canada). I bet a lot of stuff would go DC in this case (i.e. lighting) I suspect appliances would stay AC because they would put a huge premium on dc appliances just because they can.

> Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid

It’s mind-boggling that this happened as it only seems to serve the private power companies while simultaneously restricting entire populations from some of the biggest benefits of current and future sustainable energy sources.

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#15

Post by ElijahLynn »

hristov wrote: post #5

Good news. Lets hope this results in lower EV prices and higher EV adoption.

Yes! This combined with a 10 fold increase in public EV chargers, using the new NACS (North American Charging Standard) that Tesla open sourced and all manufacturers agreed to implement in 2025 will be the tipping point!

At some point gas stations will lose enough revenue they will have to raise the prices, which will only accelerate the shift.

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#16

Post by dhc02 »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #13
pg_bot wrote: post #11

I'm trying to think of the second order effects of solar and battery storage if it becomes cheap enough to run your entire house without the grid. Wouldn't it make sense to design houses with DC power from the ground up? Why go through the inefficient inverter if you are generating DC from a solar panel and using DC power internally in all of your appliances? Assuming $3-5 per watt fully installed and a 6 kWh solar p…

Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid in the city (it certainly is in my home city in Canada). I bet a lot of stuff would go DC in this case (i.e. lighting) I suspect appliances would stay AC because they would put a huge premium on dc appliances just because they can.

One opposing force to this eventuality is the huge and still-growing RV/camper/boat industry, which has begun shipping some really good, house-sized DC electric appliances lately. It seems like these worlds might one day converge.

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#17

Post by antonjs »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #13
pg_bot wrote: post #11

I'm trying to think of the second order effects of solar and battery storage if it becomes cheap enough to run your entire house without the grid. Wouldn't it make sense to design houses with DC power from the ground up? Why go through the inefficient inverter if you are generating DC from a solar panel and using DC power internally in all of your appliances? Assuming $3-5 per watt fully installed and a 6 kWh solar p…

Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid in the city (it certainly is in my home city in Canada). I bet a lot of stuff would go DC in this case (i.e. lighting) I suspect appliances would stay AC because they would put a huge premium on dc appliances just because they can.

In some places it's also illegal to have that many LI batteries in your house (looking at you, SF).

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#18

Post by hyperhello »

pg_bot wrote: post #11

I'm trying to think of the second order effects of solar and battery storage if it becomes cheap enough to run your entire house without the grid. Wouldn't it make sense to design houses with DC power from the ground up? Why go through the inefficient inverter if you are generating DC from a solar panel and using DC power internally in all of your appliances? Assuming $3-5 per watt fully installed and a 6 kWh solar p…

I don’t understand the draw of your house being “off the grid”. It’s a house. Do you want to be off the water, sewer, gas, garbage, postal, newspaper, legal, and firefighting grids too, or just specifically the electrical grid? And your neighbors too or just you?

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#19

Post by snapplebobapple »

joshspankit wrote: post #14
snapplebobapple wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid in the city (it certainly is in my home city in Canada). I bet a lot of stuff would go DC in this case (i.e. lighting) I suspect appliances would stay AC because they would put a huge premium on dc appliances just because they can.

> Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid It’s mind-boggling that this happened as it only seems to serve the private power companies while simultaneously restricting entire populations from some of the biggest benefits of current and future sustainable energy sources.

It's not really surprising when you look at the history. In my area the distribution at the city level was put in by the public utility owned by the city, so of course they are going to mandate that the business the city is taking huge debt out in to gamble on electrification will be propped up with a requirement to be grid connected to get any permit. This doesn't make it right, but I get why they did this and why it continues.

Re: Lithium-ion battery pack prices hit record low

#20

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #19
joshspankit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many areas it is illegal to not be connected to the grid It’s mind-boggling that this happened as it only seems to serve the private power companies while simultaneously restricting entire populations from some of the biggest benefits of current and future sustainable energy sources.

It's not really surprising when you look at the history. In my area the distribution at the city level was put in by the public utility owned by the city, so of course they are going to mandate that the business the city is taking huge debt out in to gamble on electrification will be propped up with a requirement to be grid connected to get any permit. This doesn't make it right, but I get why they did this and why i…

I suspect probably just a way to stop landlords from renting out units without electricity
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