So maybe it's time to re-open the debate on AC vs DC in power distribution? :p
Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
171–180 of 218 posts
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#172So California gets big rechargeable batteries, interesting. Does it mean Solar City (pending acquisition by Tesla) will speed up building Gigafactory and that's how Tesla will deliver it? And does it mean that the market was wrong with recent Solar City stock drop? I'm assuming this is just a "pilot" and, if executed happily, can keep doubling capacity every x months, driving battery prices down, leveraging it as an…
There are two different Gigafactories. Tesla is building the one in Nevada for batteries, and that's the one you hear about in the news the most often. SolarCity is building a different Gigafactory for solar panels in Buffalo, New York.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Batteries are now cheaper than peakers everywhere, not just CA. That's what I'm saying. Tesla's PowerPack installs (battery storage receives federal incentives, nat gas does not) will replace peakers, leaving them as stranded assets (the cannibalization I refer to). Edit: unepipe: Tesla packs perform the exact same role as a peaker plant: energy on demand. They are distributed, dispatchable loads and generators, avai…
Could you share a reference for "Batteries are now cheaper than peakers everywhere"
btw, the price recently dropped on powerpack by 5% and 19% on inverters.
https://electrek.co/2016/09/09/tesla-quietly-reduced-the-pri...
"At the time, the Powerpack was being quoted at $470/kWh, but now we learned that Tesla brought the price down to $445/kWh."
Incidentally Goldman sachs estimates the cost to be around $200/kWh back in February.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n5WQK1A...
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#174So maybe it's time to re-open the debate on AC vs DC in power distribution? :p
This was brought up in a Fresh Air interview I listened to recently. Nowadays most of our devices use DC, and our grid is also on the verge of becoming much less centralized.
You could reap some easy efficiency gains by omitting the DC-AC-DC conversion of a solar panel powering a house that charges a laptop.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#175So maybe it's time to re-open the debate on AC vs DC in power distribution? :p
This was brought up in a Fresh Air interview I listened to recently. Nowadays most of our devices use DC, and our grid is also on the verge of becoming much less centralized. You could reap some easy efficiency gains by omitting the DC-AC-DC conversion of a solar panel powering a house that charges a laptop.
DC sucks for transmission over more than a few meters. I'm thinking, even in a house, you still want AC in the walls.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#176I think its important to note, for those who complain Tesla can't compete against pumped storage or other utility scale storage methods, that Tesla is able to have this deployed in 3 months (this is partly because Tesla can just drop racks of batteries on site and be up and running, and partly because of the regulatory environment after the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage complex leak fiasco). Edit: This will replac…
So this is only financially viable because of Californian risk aversion after last years gas leak. If you have a reliable natural gas distribution network, like the rest of the world, batteries don't make any financial sense versus gas power plants. I mean, this entire plant can supply 20 MW and will cost somewhere around $20 million. For that price you can buy two General Electric LM2500 gas turbine generators that…
I wouldn't say it's one time. There are many islands (like Hawaii) that have to import diesel to run their generators, which is very expensive. Replacing diesel generation with renewables + storage will be very attractive for a long time.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure peakers are expensive, but they are profitable, otherwise no-one would build and run them. Supply and demand etc. I'm not sure what you mean by Tesla cannibalizing the peakers? Do they already own traditional peaker plants? I agree revenue is revenue, I'm just saying this is perhaps unlikely to provide more revenue from sales outside CA.
Peakers aren't "profitable" per se, they're a result of the government granted monopoly given to power utilities. In california, at least, a brown or blackout caused by insufficient capacity can cost the utilities tens or hundreds of millions in fines so the peaker plants are a relatively cheap way to avoid having your margin wiped out in the summer. That said, I'm not sure 20MWh would really help replace any peakers…
80 MWh. 20 MW.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are comparing them because they serve the same purpose here. Base and peak loads on the grid can be wildly different. Without storage, if you want to avoid brownouts or blackouts, your generating capacity needs to match the peak load, even though you might only hit peak load a few times per year. The traditional way to handle this is to have power plants that can be spun up rapidly but sit idle 99% of the time…
Or you can use PHS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...
You can't build and install pumped hydro in 3 months.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd encourage you to spend 15 minutes researching what the costs are of running a peaker plant. There's a reason they're the most expensive generation method per MWh (peakers run for under 100 hours per year). Revenue is revenue. If Tesla is able to cannibalize the peakers to contribute towards its enormous capital expenditures, and continue to reduce costs with the Gigafactory, it only makes utility battery storage…
Sure peakers are expensive, but they are profitable, otherwise no-one would build and run them. Supply and demand etc. I'm not sure what you mean by Tesla cannibalizing the peakers? Do they already own traditional peaker plants? I agree revenue is revenue, I'm just saying this is perhaps unlikely to provide more revenue from sales outside CA.
>> "...but they are profitable..."
They're probably not profitable in the usual sense of the word. Instead they're just required by the regulators that enforce the utility monopoly and set the utility rates such that the power company doesn't go out of business.
Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, I disagree. A/C is very power hungry, and can be adjusted to cool the house lower than normal during cheap power times and let it go a bit higher during expensive power times. It can also "pre-cool" when power is cheaper. The same goes for an electric water heater. The charger for your Tesla can also adjust when it charges based on power prices. The dishwasher/washer/dryer can be set to come on at night when the…
I'm with you all the way up to affecting appliances. The key is the power shift should be virtually invisible to consumers. You don't turn off A/C, you just bump up the set point by 1 degree for that 15 minutes. The individual impact is minuscule, the aggregate impact is leveling out the peak. But you need everyone to be wired for this in order for a small change to add up to a big impact. Which isn't worth the cost…
Nest is planning this.