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

Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 218 posts

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#61

Post by toomuchtodo »

ptaipale wrote: post #46
flukus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most peoples electricity usage is relatively inelastic and no one wants the cognitive overload of checking electricity prices before they put the TV on.

However, wouldn't it make sense to e.g. adjust heating/air conditioning depending on electricity spot price? That's then just a gadget that gets the information and guides the home system. It'll probably be more meaningful in some industrial plants though, if there's any such energy-intensive industry.

This is a revenue model Nest uses (partnering with utilities to shed AC loads in households who have opted in).

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#62

Post by greglindahl »

KamiCrit wrote: post #52

I love Tesla and Elon Musk as much as the next person. But isn't it a little crazy how much Elon is betting on 18650 lithium ion batteries. I really hope I'm mistaken and they have a homemade battery package made up.

SpaceX rockets don't have the most "advanced" engines, but they sure are cost-effective. Tesla's done some pretty good things with 18650 cells and cars, and now they're hitting some serious volume. I'm surprised that that cell works for utility-scale deployments, but...

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#63

Post by greglindahl »

rdl wrote: post #51
ptaipale wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, wouldn't it make sense to e.g. adjust heating/air conditioning depending on electricity spot price? That's then just a gadget that gets the information and guides the home system. It'll probably be more meaningful in some industrial plants though, if there's any such energy-intensive industry.

I'd be pretty happy to pause an EV charge many times. Since Teslas are data-connected, they could possibly do this with no grid interface beyond the power connection.

This is one very nice aspect of a grid when there are a lot of electric cars which charge at night, and have big enough batteries that they don't need to fully charge: you can absorb a lot of variability of overnight wind energy.

And if electric cars also plug in at work... jackpot.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#64

Post by semi-extrinsic »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #59
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'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.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#65

Post by greglindahl »

h4nkoslo wrote: post #22

Musk really does seem to be following his pattern of maximally engaging government contracts and subsidies. (That's not necessarily a criticism, just an observation, and one others have made before.)

Private power companies have similar constraints and needs.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#66

Post by greglindahl »

peteretep wrote: post #23
h4nkoslo wrote: post #22

Musk really does seem to be following his pattern of maximally engaging government contracts and subsidies. (That's not necessarily a criticism, just an observation, and one others have made before.)

Suspect there aren't all that many non-government contracts of that size

This is totally incorrect - in most parts of the US, the power company/companies is/are private, and needs similar devices.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#67

Post by ccorda »

KamiCrit wrote: post #52

I love Tesla and Elon Musk as much as the next person. But isn't it a little crazy how much Elon is betting on 18650 lithium ion batteries. I really hope I'm mistaken and they have a homemade battery package made up.

They do (although only slightly different), the 2170: http://fortune.com/2016/07/27/tesla-bigger-battery-gigafacto...

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#68

Post by greglindahl »

mrfusion wrote: post #24
ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

One of the things I wish I could buy would be a Bloom Energy 2kW natural gas fuel cell and a 50kWh LiON battery pack with whole house inverter. The nice thing about the Bloom fuel cells is very efficient conversion of natural gas to electricity, the weakness is that it's response time is long (an hour or more to change its output by 50%). The nice thing about LiOn battery packs like the ones in Tesla cars are that th…

50kwh seems high for your needs. Wouldn't five or ten be enough if you're constantly replenishing from the fuel cell?

Not only does Chuck want to own & charge an electric car, but he also wants to be able to take advantage of many days of sunny weather in a row. A smaller battery means a bigger gas bill.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#69

Post by toomuchtodo »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64
toomuchtodo wrote: post #59

Earlier 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.

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, available to draw or release energy from/to the electrical grid as needed, when commanded to do so by a grid operator.

I assume I used "cannibalization" improperly in this context. Mea culpa.

Re: Tesla Wins Contract to Help Power the California Grid

#70

Post by greglindahl »

tlb wrote: post #31
honkhonkpants wrote: post #8

Why doesn't Panasonic just cut out the middleman here? Are they afraid of making their own deals in america?

Combining thousands of cells into large packs that don't overheat, catch fire, leak, or wear out prematurely turns out to be pretty hard.

I've seen a bunch of HN comments over time claiming that Tesla has no battery technology, because they don't build the basic cell. Turns out that battery packs are more than just the cells they're built out of.
Post reply on HN