Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

offgridquest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 220 posts

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#31

Post by Arcanum-XIII »

skrause wrote: post #17
oloboWd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water and sewage -- Most people in rural america and even in semi-suburban america already use their own wells and septic systems for water and sewage. Likewise with trash, many people drop their trash off at the dump/recycling center themselves. Broadband, yep, no DIY solution there but various forms of wireless internet are available that make it quite feasible to have a completely unwired home if not disconnected.

But still the question is, why would I want that? I'm all for distributed power generation, but it can still be optimized better when it's connected to a grid.

And fail hard too - blackout (then brownout) are more and more a concern. Then there's the question of the power price. I don't think the battery will be cheap when revealed, but after a while, they will and help us with solar/wind created energy.

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#32

Post by deelowe »

skrause wrote: post #17
oloboWd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water and sewage -- Most people in rural america and even in semi-suburban america already use their own wells and septic systems for water and sewage. Likewise with trash, many people drop their trash off at the dump/recycling center themselves. Broadband, yep, no DIY solution there but various forms of wireless internet are available that make it quite feasible to have a completely unwired home if not disconnected.

But still the question is, why would I want that? I'm all for distributed power generation, but it can still be optimized better when it's connected to a grid.

Even with a grid connection, this would be useful as it would allow the power companies to generate more during off peak hours. A distributed power storage solution combined with a centralized power generation solution would be extremely efficient. It's like turning your home into a hybrid.

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#33

Post by oloboWd »

skrause wrote: post #17
oloboWd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water and sewage -- Most people in rural america and even in semi-suburban america already use their own wells and septic systems for water and sewage. Likewise with trash, many people drop their trash off at the dump/recycling center themselves. Broadband, yep, no DIY solution there but various forms of wireless internet are available that make it quite feasible to have a completely unwired home if not disconnected.

But still the question is, why would I want that? I'm all for distributed power generation, but it can still be optimized better when it's connected to a grid.

There are many possible reasons. You might enjoy the feeling of independence or self reliance that supplying your own power brings. You might be a weed grower and not want to be found out because of your energy bills. You may feel that it's more responsible to produce your own electricity and have a clear understanding of its environmental costs. Grid power may be unreliable in your area, or expensive. Maybe you think that power lines give you cancer. Maybe grid power is simply unavailable in your location.

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#34

Post by pjc50 »

deelowe wrote: post #25
Already__Taken wrote: post #4

Can someone explain to me why being able to build off the electrical grid is worth all this effort since you're still going to need running water, sewage, bins collecting, broadband and a number of other things?

Well. Broadband is available wirelessly either via cell, wifi, or satellite, so there's not a requirement for a physical connection. Water and sewer have localized options with wells and septic, but they are also extremely inexpensive to build and maintain and have a relatively small environmental impact. Electricity, on the other hand, has no viable localized option today. It's also the only one of these that has a…

significant drop in efficiency due to the distribution itself

This is usually less than the efficiency drop involved in a round trip through a battery. It's not as big a factor as you think.

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#35

Post by wil421 »

LeonM wrote: post #2

I've always been wondering why there have never been affordable local power storage solutions on the market. I'd love to have a battery like this to store excess power from solar panels. Returning power to the grid is a waste in both efficiency and money (you just make the power company richer). Unless you live in Germany (where there are laws forcing power companies to buy excess energy back against peak price), a b…

>Unless you live in Germany (where there are laws forcing power companies to buy excess energy back against peak price), a battery should be the way to go.

You can get power companies in the US to buy your excess energy. The co-op that supplies my power will set up a meter if you have your own power source. If your total usage is less than what you created they will buy the power from you (not the best rate).

They will even give you money back for installing solar cells [1].

1. http://energy.gov/savings/cobb-emc-solar-rebate-program

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#36

Post by datashovel »

Already__Taken wrote: post #4

Can someone explain to me why being able to build off the electrical grid is worth all this effort since you're still going to need running water, sewage, bins collecting, broadband and a number of other things?

From the research I've done on solar power systems (for powering homes) the market does not have an obvious pre-packaged solution that is made for storage of excess capacity generated by your solar panels.

One commonly suggested (and substantially cheaper) option is to just set things up so you don't have local battery storage and just redirect all excess power back to the utility company.

The problem with that has already been mentioned. You're giving power back to the utility company at a fraction of what you purchase electricity for.

But beyond that, as power requirements in appliances / computers / electronic gadgets continues to decrease, and efficiency and capacity of alternative energy solutions continues to increase, there will likely come a time (in the not-too-distant-future) when there will [at least in theory] no longer be a need for utility companies.

In fact, from varied sources online I've gotten the impression that many countries (besides US) have substantially reduced power requirements per household where even today it's feasible (for those with sufficient roof space) to move all of their power usage off grid, and rely strictly on power generated by solar.

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#38

Post by skrause »

oloboWd wrote: post #33
skrause wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But still the question is, why would I want that? I'm all for distributed power generation, but it can still be optimized better when it's connected to a grid.

There are many possible reasons. You might enjoy the feeling of independence or self reliance that supplying your own power brings. You might be a weed grower and not want to be found out because of your energy bills. You may feel that it's more responsible to produce your own electricity and have a clear understanding of its environmental costs. Grid power may be unreliable in your area, or expensive. Maybe you thin…

All those are good reasons to also have your own power. You'll get your independence and might even save some money.

But even then it's still good to be connected to the grid. It will serve as a backup line and if you produce more enery than you can consume, you might be able to sell something back to the grid.

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#39

Post by meesterdude »

Awesome! and great news for the renewables.

Right now, if there's a storm or what have you you can lose your heat, your power, your water - everything. Its a bit like the mainfraime/terminal days - everything is centralized, and represent single points of failure for the citizens it serves.

But with energy you create yourself, and things like water recycling or indoor farms, we could go fairly far in self-sustaining units. And instead of the grid, there could be local community sharing so if your power/water goes out you can pull from a local grid. It doesn't need to be in every home, but something more distributed means more resiliency in the system overall, and thats handy in a lot of scenarios.

All that's a ways away though - but making the energy storage better / cheaper is an important step.

But I'm curious of the environmental factors in battery production / lifetime / recycling, can anyone comment on the impact these batteries represent?

Re: Tesla Motors Announces a New Home Battery

#40

Post by cplease »

LeonM wrote: post #2

I've always been wondering why there have never been affordable local power storage solutions on the market. I'd love to have a battery like this to store excess power from solar panels. Returning power to the grid is a waste in both efficiency and money (you just make the power company richer). Unless you live in Germany (where there are laws forcing power companies to buy excess energy back against peak price), a b…

> Unless you live in Germany

Many populous U.S. states have net metering, New York and California inclusive.

Post reply on HN