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Tesla Plans To Power Its Gigafactory With Renewables Alone
AmiMoJo writes In his press conference, Elon Musk stated that the factory will produce all of its own energy using a combination of solar, wind, and geothermal. Engineering.com looks at the feasibility of the plans. Spoiler alert: it looks possible, though some storage will be required. Fortunately, if there is one thing the Gigafactory won't be short of it's batteries. From the article: "The numbers don’t lie. The site could realistically produce more than 2900 MWh of renewable electricity each day ... 20% more than it needs. These are conservative estimates on production and worst-case estimates on consumption, and it’s clear that there’s enough renewable energy to run the plant with some to spare."
"all of its own energy using a combination of solar, wind, and geothermal"
No, that's not what it says. It says it will be net-zero. That's a big difference.
This plant will be grid-connected. It will simply produce as much energy as it uses. Not all the time, not 24 hours.
Tesla has paid back its department of energy loan a long time back and last I checked, didn't take out another.