"Home Batteries" Power Houses For a Week

tjansen writes "Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries.' They are lithium-ion batteries large enough to power a house for a week, making energy sources such as solar and wind power more feasible. Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest, and don't need to worry about power outages anymore."

Comments

Boom.

[ScrewMaster]

I don't trust lithium-ion technology enough to want something with that much capacity in my basement. Wouldn't want my house to look like this

I have a thousand watt-hour battery that runs my sump pum during a power failure, but it's lead-acid. They've been around for a loooong time and are pretty damn stable (even so, this one is in a concrete-walled sump room.) Lithium-ions have a ways to go before they can be considered as trustworthy, and their higher energy density just makes them that much more dangerous during a catastrophic failure. Yet another reason why I'd never buy a hybrid vehicle. The idea of sitting atop a massive lithium-ion battery pack makes me far more nervous than I've ever been about a tank of gasoline.

Re:Boom.

[dunkelfalke]

Dude, most hybrids out there use NiMH batteries. Sorry to give you cognitive dissonance.

Re:Boom.

[Mortaegus]

The idea really isn't to backup your power during an outage. The idea is to store power collected with on-site measures such as solar/wind and use the battery during times when these local power measure's aren't supplying enough. Another point would be to purchase power from the electric company when demand is low, and store for use when demand is high. Power companies could signal that demand is too high and the load is about cause problems, and people could switch to their reserves, in order to prevent damage to the grid. (Such as happens frequently when everybody runs their air coolers in the summer). I think that this would be a good measure to prevent the problems that cause blackouts, but I don't think it should, in all cases, be the consumer putting forth the effort to fix things. (At least in the US they need fixing). The power companies should put a few of these in the ground, and THEY can activate them when the need is there, rather than asking customers to handle it for them. Else they can damn well charge us a lot less than 60 cents per kilowatt hour. (Newark).

Re:Boom.

[fyngyrz]

It's not the average times that get you. It's the outlier numbers that collapse into the averages. We've seen eight hours without power in -20 degreee F weather here in Montana. It's why I own a generator and can switch power to the (gas) furnace any time I want to. When you're talking about protection from power outages, what you want to know is does the power EVER go out for long enough intervals to do you damage: And everywhere I've lived - Pennsylvania, NYC, Florida, California, Montana - the answer is an unqualified yes. Right now, there's no sense going without UPSs for computer systems and backups for heating and critical power systems like fishtanks, refrigerators, etc.

The power grid is subject to people running into telephone poles, ice on the lines, old transformers bursting into flames, lightning and geomagnetic storms, human error, and a bunch more things. That's the nature of it - it's out there in the real world. You can protect a power system within your own walls such that it is much more reliable, and that's no slam on the power company - you simply don't have as much to contend with.

Now, if you have no pipes to freeze, no data to lose, no fish to watch float to the top, no freezers full of food to see turn into biohazard... sure, I can see depending on the average. After all... what could go wrong?

Re:Boom.

[Sir_Lewk]

On the other hand, very many households have massive oil or propane tanks in their basements. Gasoline just doesn't happen to be all that great for heating your house.

Re:Boom.

[hardburn]

"Reserves", for anything (Lithium, oil, whatever), are calculated according to what is predicted to be economically feasible to extract within the near future. If something suddenly spikes demand, resulting in a higher price, then new sources "magically" become available. That's why Malthusian disasters haven't happened.

But broadly speaking, yes, there's probably not enough Lithium in the Earth's crust to run all the cars and houses like this.

Re:Boom.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://safetravel.dot.gov/definitions.html

The lithium equivalent calculator on this site suggests
That your calculations are a few orders of magnitude
Off.

Equivalent Lithium Content (ELC). ELC is a measure by which lithium ion batteries are classified. 8 grams of equivalent lithium content are equal to about 100 watt-hours. 25 grams of equivalent lithium content are equal to about 300 watt-hours.

So, 80 kg for a battery that holds 1000kWh.
Also, we have practically limitless lithium reserves in seawater.

Re:Boom.

[cnaumann]

The mass of lithium in a Li ion battery is no where near 1/2. For example, a LiMn2O4 Cathode is only 1/20 lithium by mass. Also, the 'recoverable' reserves of Lithium are at least three time higher than that 11 Megatonnes estimate. See http://lithiumabundance.blogspot.com/.

The earth's crust is nearly 20 ppm lithium by mass, so lithium is faily abundant. However, there are very few economically recoverable sources of lithium. If prices rise, more sources become available. We simple cannot 'run out' of lithium.

World production of lithium is another matter, it is only about 40,000 tonnes a year.

Re:Boom.

[unkiereamus]

But for the individual homeowner, it really does seem like overkill. If our power becomes so erratic that these things actually start to make sense, I'm going to say we've a lot more serious issues to deal with.

Now, I actually have a similar set up to this, I have a bank of 10 110Ah lead gelcell batteries connected to a 3500w Xantrex charger/inverter. It's worth every penny.

You see, the thing is, I live in the third world. Around here, we have power outages about once every two weeks. Usually they last less than a couplefew hours, but occasionally they go much longer, the record since I've been here is three days. While I will admit that I reduced my power consumption for the three day one once I found out how long it was going to last, I still kept the important stuff going (fridge, water pump, computer etc).

Most gringos around here have some sort of generator, be it gasoline, diesel or LPG, and while the initial investment is lower, I think the battery system is far superior. For one thing, it's almost completely silent (the cooling fans kick in on the inverter, and the ceiling fans start to hum because of the modified sine power the inverter provides), and for another it's got an instant transfer of power (Even with a automatic transfer switch on a generator, there's a slight delay while the generator warms up, not to mention that the humid, salty air around here tends to do bad things to ATSes, an dyou really don't want to see what happens when they fail so as to leave the generator on when the line power comes on.).

While those are nice, what's really superior is the fact that even when the line power is flowing, the battery system serves to condition it, brown outs and surges both.

Oh, and even with the efficiency losses, it's cheaper to recharge the batteries than it would be to buy the gas/diesel/LPG.

While I will admit that my case is not typical, I think it's foolish of you to dismiss this technology out of hand.

Re:Boom.

[SnarfQuest]

What happens when you drive it over a cliff in a movie? Your typical gas powered movie car will explode in a giant fireball before it ever hits anythin on the way down (cue tire rolling out of burning wreckage). How would an all electric vehicle fare? There should be, at the least, a giant lightning bolt, St. Elmo's fire, and a Jacobs Ladder effect on the antenna. Flashes of blue light in the passengers mouths would also be appropriate, like in Star Wars.

Re:Boom.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I was doing contract programming at one of the auto companies, in a plant that made "bumper shocks" along with other parts, when a defective weld caused one to fire its piston through an assembly line worker in another plant and killed him. The whole plant was in mourning. (And thank goodness I was in a different product line...)

Gently stopping a 5mph car in a matter of inches, without incurring driving-safety-imparing damage, requires very large and very-well-controlled forces. Bumper shock absorbers (at least that model) are (extremely) pressurized with nitrogen, to keep the fluids in the correct place and act as an initial "spring" during the first part of the travel in a crash, before the fluid friction is ramped up. If the weld holding the piston in fails you have a good approximation to a high-powered pistol firing a large slug.

Of course the manufacturers try REALLY HARD to make sure the welds and the cylinders are solid, given the possible damages if one fails. So getting one to fail in the field is tough. But any manufacturing process (short of single-atom-placement-and-check nanotech and maybe even that) can be expected to have a few defective parts slip through inspection.

Vaporware

[mi]

Emphasis mine:

Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries.' They are lithium-ion batteries large enough to power a house for a week, making energy sources such as solar and wind power more feasible. Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest, and don't need to worry about power outages anymore.

Sorry, but if they have only just "announced plans", then, for the foreseeable future, I still can not power a house for a week, and I still need to worry about power outages.

Wake me up, when I can pick these up at Lowe's... Or, at least, order them online somewhere...

Indeed, TFA itself uses the proper tenses and gives the ETA for what currently can only be called "vaporware":

Panasonic is going to create one of the hottest batteries available to date. The new lithium-ion storage cell should power up a whole house in 2011 when it could be available to the general public. [...] No specific details about the future home battery from Panasonic have been given yet. In two years time we should know more about the device and Panasonic will definitely want to periodically show everyone its progress.

CmdrTaco, WTF?..

Battery maintenance

[x_hexdump_x]

Large UPS are common for data centers. But they are expensive and time consuming to maintain. In a data center the cost and time are justified. But for a home I would question the value.

Wrong technology

[Mprx]

The only advantage of lithium batteries is high energy density, which is irrelevant for a static installation. For powering something as long lasting as a house it would be better to use something more robust. Nickel-iron batteries have low energy density but are very robust. I wouldn't want a house battery I'd have to replace every few years.

Re:Tense

[ScrewMaster]

This is just hype. I for one will not be buying the $150k batteries that need special zoning permissions and need to be replaced every 3 years.

Cost is around $50K a year? That wouldn't make economical sense for anyone. Is there anyone here who shells out $50k a year to their electric company? Didn't think so.

Well, if the things had a decent service life (15-20 years, say) and could be installed as part of the purchase price of a new home, and provided sufficient economic benefits to be worth the investment, I could see it happening. Maybe. But a pack with a 3-5 year lifetime is not going to cut the mustard. As I mentioned above, I have a 105AH Hawker AGM lead-acid gas-recombinant battery that runs my sump pump. Supposedly rated for 15 years service life, and banks of these things are used in load-leveling applications in large buildings. I once figured out how many of them it would take to run my house for a week, and frankly it was too many. So you'd need something more energy-dense for a whole-house application, but that's still a lot of energy to be packing away in an uncontrolled environment like a home.

Re:Uhh....lithium ion?

[slyn]

who would want a partially charged battery when the power goes out for 3 days in the dead of winter?

I would, since the status quo is no battery at all.

The cool kids on the block already have natural gas generators hooked up to their houses in the case of power outage, and I would guess that a natural gas generator would last significantly longer at a significantly lower TCO than any currently available battery technology (when at the scale of powering a house).

Re:But what about the massive environmental damage

[welsh git]

both wrong. the periodic table has nothing to do with commonness.

From: http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/periodic/faq/what-element-is-most-abundant.shtml :

"On earth, oxygen is the most common element, making up about 47% of the earth's mass. Silicon is second, making up 28%, followed by aluminum (8%), iron (5%), magnesium (2%), calcium (4%), sodium (3%), and potassium (3%). All of the remaining elements together make up less than 1% of the earth's mass."

The Official BMW Rescue Manual

[westlake]

[citation needed] /morbid curiosityZ

Stories like this always have the flavor of a urban legend.

The automated roll bar deployment is a feature of some BMW covertibles only.

It uses springs. Not explosives.

Emergency services guidelines September 2009.

For a full description with handsome cutaway illustrations in color click to pages 22 and 23 of the PDF.

The 80's called, they want their prejudices back..

[Space cowboy]

just gone out and bought a VW diesel TDI 2010 model. It's as quiet as a petrol engine when running, and only (very) slightly louder than a petrol engine while idling. The exhaust is very clean...

As for efficiency, the TDI is currently averaging 49 miles/gallon for the sportwagen, that's real honest-to-goodness driving on both freeway and city streets, and is ~7mpg higher than the official rating of the car.

I didn't quite believe it, so I did the calculation myself based on mileage and purchased fuel, and my figures came to 52 miles/gallon. If anything, the car is under-reporting the fuel economy. Not to mention that diesel is actually cheaper per gallon than unleaded.

Note that the jetta sportwagen is the identical size to the normal jetta (it's just a different top), and that the engine is only a 2.0 litre engine, smaller than the 2.5 litre base jetta engine.

In short, I don't think you could actually be any more wrong about diesel engines.

Simon.