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Why Elon Musk's Batteries Frighten Electric Companies
JoeyRox writes: The publicized goal of Tesla's "gigafactory" is to make electric cars more affordable. However, that benefit may soon be eclipsed by the gigafactory's impact on roof-top solar power storage costs, putting the business model of utilities in peril. "The mortal threat that ever cheaper on-site renewables pose" comes from systems that include storage, said physicist Amory Lovins. "That is an unregulated product you can buy at Home Depot that leaves the old business model with no place to hide."
So, what evidence is there that electric companies are scared? Sounds like just the contention of a greeny.
Again, I don't understand why the arguments assume there has to be ONE winner, or that one way wipes out the other way. If we cut BACK on dead animal fuel it will be an improvement. There is room for more than one way to fuel a house.
Electric utilities would in fact love local storage for solar rooftops. The big technical problem for them is that when a cloud goes over an area, all the electricty being pumped back into the grid suddenly drops drastically and the power company has to have generation capacity to add in within seconds to avoid brown outs. By having even 30 minutes worth of storage in the home, the batteries could fill in for the local drop and ease the imapct on the power company.
This is becoming a very big problem in Germany now and there are companies whose sole business is to supply incredibly expensive (thousands of dollars per kilowatt hour in some cases) electricity within a few seconds notice. I believe there was even a bloomberg article on this a few months ago.
Utilities are scared that enough customers will stop using them that they'll have to raise rates with remaining customers in order to continue to pay for the power production machinery that's on-credit, which will further drive away customers to alternative sources of power.
Thing of it is, there's really no excuse for new single-family homes to not have solar on the roof. It's a lot more affordable for the average family if the solar is part of the mortgage than if it's a separate itemized purchase. I'd like to retrofit my house to solar as well, and I'm considering how to do it, but the local power company wants to charge out the ass to solar customers that are grid-tied, basically to make it as expensive as if you're buying power from them, and they want to pay jack and shit (and jack left town) for power that you sell back to them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What the hell is up with the title of this article? Nowhere did I find any indication of anyone being "scared" or "frightened."
The threat that the article explains is that cheaper, better batteries makes going off-grid easier. Of course, electricity utilities aren't going to release a press release stating that they 'are afraid of this new technology and will try to kill it'! You may have doubts about how much of a threat batteries are to electricity companies and how that potential loss compares with the gain from electric cars, but the article is clear on the risks, in my opinion.
You should care about how they might respond with Lobbying and Legislation that will block your and everyone's ability to actually use the batteries.
They will respond to protect themselves and their revenue stream, most anyone would.
History has shown they will not hesitate to utilize almost any method available.
That is what you should be concerned about.
You must mean that notoriously goddamn liberal hotbed of politics called Texas. They really don't like that whole goddamn liberal free market direct sale model. If only they could learn from that famous bastion of conservative thought that started the whole mess: California. Let's not cloud the issue with facts. They're terribly inconvenient.
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
They do not like anything that winds up with them selling fewer electrons. They don't even like cogeneration. When I was a reporter, writing about the electric industry about ten years ago, at the time the industry was saying they would help large businesses implement cogeneration to achieve greater efficiency, I learned about the "cogen killers" - people working for the electric producers who would on the sly, go and pressure large businesses to NOT implement cogeneration. This industry is rife with this kind of thing, so I would suggest you take anything one of their PR people says with a gigantic grain of salt, and then start following the money.