Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Announces Home Battery System
An anonymous reader writes: Early this morning, Elon Musk finally revealed Tesla's plans for the home: battery systems designed to store up to 10 kWh of power. The company is leveraging the battery technology they've developed for their electric cars to enable more people to switch to renewable power for their homes. There will be two models of the battery. The 10 kWh version will cost $3,500, and the 7 kWh version will cost $3,000. They can deliver power at a continuous rate of 2kW, with peaks up to 3 kW. Crucially, the batteries will be warrantied for 10 years. Musk thinks the market for home batteries will expand to at least two billion, eventually. But even a much smaller uptake for now will validate the creation of Tesla's "gigafactory."
"The gigafactory is the recipient of the largest incentive package ever given by Nevada at $1.3 billion, which followed a hotly contested tax incentive bidding war between various states to land the Tesla battery plant. For the investment to pay off, Tesla needs to convince hundreds of thousands of consumers per year to buy its cars and battery products, with the gigafactory serving as a cornerstone to the company's sales strategy. ... An early gigafactory rendering released by Tesla stated that the plant will have an annual battery pack output of 50 gigawatt hours — the bulk of which will go toward batteries for cars with most of the remainder to be allocated for stationary batteries, according to figures mentioned by Tesla's chief technology JB Straubel last year. The gigafactory's sheer scope makes other battery products a possibility as well."
"The gigafactory is the recipient of the largest incentive package ever given by Nevada at $1.3 billion, which followed a hotly contested tax incentive bidding war between various states to land the Tesla battery plant. For the investment to pay off, Tesla needs to convince hundreds of thousands of consumers per year to buy its cars and battery products, with the gigafactory serving as a cornerstone to the company's sales strategy. ... An early gigafactory rendering released by Tesla stated that the plant will have an annual battery pack output of 50 gigawatt hours — the bulk of which will go toward batteries for cars with most of the remainder to be allocated for stationary batteries, according to figures mentioned by Tesla's chief technology JB Straubel last year. The gigafactory's sheer scope makes other battery products a possibility as well."
This battery could power a smaller sized home for a whole day. Kind of thing that can make solar energy viable.
Love him or loather him, but Musk is changing the world.
Think the U.S. Is heavily behind electric power and this could be the start of an electric revolution.
Great idea. My power supplier currently has rates based on TOU (Time Of Use - http://www.torontohydro.com/si...), and I'd love to be able to charge up the battery supply for my house overnight at cheap rates, then run off the battery the rest of the time.
I just hope it's not going to be one of those "Only available in the United States" deals.
It was all-but-announced on Slashdot already: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/04/25/112224/tesla-to-announce-battery-based-energy-storage-for-homes. Conclusion? If it was a solution to energy needs that made fiscal and thermodynamic sense, the utilities would be doing it - and they are, with tech that doesn't have to be repurchased every 10 years, such as pumped-storage.
The consumer version bears a disconcerting resemblance to a coffin for a particularly obese child; but I'm liking the looks of the rack-based unit.
This might have something to do with a recent spate of obnoxious fights with some of our APC UPSes and their surprisingly touchy and death-prone lead acid battery modules. Even when the UPSes themselves arent' dropping dead, swapping out SLA modules every 2-3 years, at best, gets real old, real fast.
kW is a unit of power. When you multiply it by a unit of time it becomes a unit of energy.
At the bottom of the
So if you turn on your stove and clothes dryer, your TV shuts off? It's like my college apartment all over again.
Looks like the Shipstone idea could finally become a reality. Another neat idea foreshadowed by Heinlein.
Iranian trolling aside, what would happen to a Lithium battery system of this capacity, after a EMP? I'm pretty sure there is a failsafe, fuse or whatever inside, but I can't help but think not to have this anywhere near the actual house.
I see, that Slashdot is eager to help in advertising with free (it is, is not it?) promotion.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Electric stove, oven, washer, dryer, air conditioning, refrigerator, electric heat, TV, DVR, etc.
There's no way that it would power a home in the US. I can hear the constant squealing of the overload notification already.
I'll need 10 of them just to hold enough power for my grow op overnight.
I think lots of people would consider this kind of backup solution and the price all considered makes it sort of cheap.
I'm reading the 10 kWh pack may be more like $4500 rather than $3500. I like that 10 year warranty though .. and you get whole-house surge protection of course, I'm sure.
If you put enough PV on your home, you can eliminate your electric bill. At which point, many utilities argue, the costs of maintaining the grid (that's rolled into your electric bill, but not as a separate line item) are covered by the less-wealthy. The poor are subsidizing the grid for the wealthy, they argue. And they argue, further, that they should be able to charge people who are using Net Metering even if they ARE producing as much power as they're consuming.
Where I live, I pay a monthly connection charge ( < $20 / month) + $0.085 / kWh. In short, my electrical co-op breaks these out as separate line items on the bill. Even if I put in enough PV to go Net Zero, so long as I'm connected to the grid, I'm at least paying the monthly connection charge. The Arizona utility wanted a connection charge / kWh installed PV, to the point that the homeowners who installed the PV ended up paying the same, without or without the PV. In short, they wanted to eliminate any incentive to add PV and connect to the grid. They did get approval for a connection charge / kWh installed, but it was a fraction of what they wanted.
In Hawaii, where power is routinely $0.39 / kWh (it's made, largely, from imported petroleum), solar PV and Net Metering are so widespread that entire neighborhoods are producing excess power during the height of the day. It's to the point where HECO gets to veto whether or not you can add PV to your home; you have to get permits from them and they're getting harder to acquire. Because the transformers which convert distributed power (typically lower frequency and higher voltage) to the household power (60 Hz / 240 VAC split-phase) are made to work efficiently, one-way. Going the other way, they are considerably less efficient. If you are a net producer and your neighbor is a larger, net consumer, you're supplying your neighbor and the local transformer simply converts less power going into that neighborhood. When the entire neighborhood is a net producer, the transformer has a problem. So they limit how much power can be produced in each neighborhood.
I used to think this was all about the power/utility companies trying to defend their bottom line. That's still part of it, but I've come to realize there are technical reasons, too. Installing efficient, bi-directional transformers would require:
at considerable expense. And that latter part, well, you KNOW they're not going to let their executives and/or shareholders eat that cost. And many utilities are regulated, such that they have to get approvals for rate increases. Which aren't easy to get. So there's technical reasons AND financial reasons for the utilities to grip.
Put a battery pack on your home, like one of these. Get an inverter which feeds excess to the battery and NEVER exports to the grid. The power company loses their only technical reason to gripe, because you are no longer doing Net Metering. At that point, it's all about the Benjamins.
Indeed, if you get to the point where your home is truly Net Zero, long-term, you can go completely off-grid. At which point they no longer have a say in the matter.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
That's pathetic. A single golf cart battery holds over 1 kWh (enough over that you can draw 1 kWh without damaging the battery). 10 golf cart batteries aren't unreasonable for someone to buy or use (They only cost $90 each, and, treated properly, will last several years). So we have $900 for the old school version, or $3500 for the new school version.
I suppose it depends on how dedicated to space you are. 10 GC2 batteries will require 6 cu feet of space. 10 GC2 batteries can also beat 2 kW continuous power delivery without damaging anything.
I thought this was going to be earth shattering news. I suppose Tesla will have nice light batteries (10 GC2s weigh over 600 lbs) but for a fixed system, really, who cares about weight? They will, however, revolutionize the RV industry, where 600 lbs of weight sucks and having 10 kWh of power stored up could let someone dry camp for weeks without problems. Perhaps Tesla is marketing towards the wrong people.
Tesla dont make batteries they just buy them from Panasonic, American business in a nutshell, buy $product from Asia and tell everyone you made it, Americas is just Asias best salesman, nothing innovative here (except PR) at all.
It's about GBP30-40 for a 100Ah 12V car lead-acid battery on a random site. These are mass-produced, cheap and easily available. Granted that they are heavy and large, but... scaling up... that's 1.2KWh alone. We'd only need ten car batteries to match it. That's GBP300-400.
Why, then does it cost the equivalent of nearly $3,500 (GBP2200) for the same here?
Sure, we allow leeway for different voltages (necessary for high-current loads, etc.), different technologies, deep-cycle, etc. but... that's a five-to-seven-fold increase over what we're using now for quite basic solar, wind, etc. power storage and can be obtained from any garage. And 10 car batteries aren't prohibitively large, expensive, difficult to handle, etc.
With 10 year warranty and 2KW peaks? That's way within range of such a pack. Hell, stick a decent split charger / inverter on the end, one designed for home use, and it still comes nowhere near the price of this home battery.
Is my maths wrong? Have I missed something? Quite what are we trying to sell here apart from an overpriced battery and some electronics on either end of it?
You mad bro?
The incentives are but a fraction of what Tesla spends, and are over a period of ten years or so
"Tesla needs to convince hundreds of thousands of consumers per year to buy its cars and battery products, with the gigafactory serving as a cornerstone to the company's sales strategy" is bullshit.
Demand for Teslas is so high, and global battery production is so low and expensive that Tesla needs the gigafactory or fail to produce the cars needed. Quite another way of looking at it. Remember Panasonic is a big part of that factory.
Any continent without a gigafactory in the next two years demonstrates it is inhabited by idiots.
3500, that is kinda of cheap...
It's so easy to criticize but at least Musk is attempting to change the world for better. What have you done to help reduce pollution, carbon/greenhouse emissions, or dependence on utility providers that have no competition? The bottom line is people like the guy because he is trying to solve problems that affect large amounts of people.
What is your argument for the Musk hate? You're upset he tried to upset the auto market status quo and it didn't happen overnight?
Steve Jobs merely made trinkets for douchebags with too much money.
Musk, as self-aggrandizing as he may be, at least is genuinely trying to make the world a slightly better place (while making a buck at the same time).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Awful lot of homoerotic imagery in your post. I'm guessing your gay and don't want to admit it. Time to come out of the closet.
Monetize a product and grow a market. Finally a business that knows how to make a buck unlike the other low hanging fruit morons. Yes Exxon you can make these kind of products and still drill for oil.
Assuming loads of people put panels on their houses, 22c/kWh in the day and 5c/kWh in the night can't last. Presumably day prices would be lower than night prices eventually.
Al Gore is going to use it to power his home; he's ordered 90.
Some random googling for "average daily electric usage" seems to indicate that Americans use about 20-30 kWh per day. So a 10 kWh battery will only over 1/2 to a 1/3 of day. As a power backup this seems pretty flimsy. People would have to buy 2 or 3 of these for a single day power backup, which seems a little crazy. Maybe in combination with solar/wind? I dunno, a generator seems more practical, you can just go buy more gas for it. Maybe if my applianced knew when they are running on battery power and could auto adjust their consumption. Otherwise, I am just going to find out about a major power outage a few hours after everyone else. Using it for cheeper electricity is a little funny too. Currently, electricity is already cheep. Even if it cut my electricity bill in half, its not really all that much per month. It's like cutting my bathroom tissue costs in half, not really going to make me a rich man.
I just did a price check and a 10kwh rolls royce deep cycle system with 4 of those batteries is about 1500 USD. Tesla wants 3000 to 3500. At that price, I could buy 20kwh to 30kwh in conventional lead acid batteries.
The primary advantage of the Lithium batteries is that they're light. But in a static location what is the point of them? Who cares how much the batteries weigh if they never get moved? They sit in a utility closet somewhere in your house and that's it. I'm really confused as to why anyone would pay DOUBLE for Teslas batteries?
Am I missing something? Why would I pay TWICE as much per kilowatt hour?
What is more, deep cycle lead acid batteries can be reconditioned giving them a second life. I don't think you can do that with lithium batteries.
Help me understand. This makes no sense to me.
Here is a link to what I'm looking at as competition:
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/...
How are the tesla batteries better than that for this application?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If that 10 years is maintenance free as in I don't have to do anything to it He will win big.
The biggest problem with off grid solar+wind installs is that caring for the battery bank is outside of the abilities of 80% of the population. If musk can make an off grid solar/wind install a zero effort/ zero care system where the drooling masses don't have to do anything.....
That will get the adoption rates way up, if the payback is within 5 years.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you put enough PV on your home, you can eliminate your electric bill. At which point, many utilities argue, the costs of maintaining the grid (that's rolled into your electric bill, but not as a separate line item) are covered by the less-wealthy.
I'm a certified cost accountant in my day job and this argument falls flat if they are actually charging in a rational manner for their services. The cost of maintaining the grid is (or should be) a separate charge from the cost of the electricity you actually use. Maintenance is a (roughly) known fixed cost, usage is a variable cost. If the person maintains a connection to the grid it is a fairly straightforward proposition to charge them a flat rate for the privilege which covers their portion of the infrastructure maintenance. Infrastructure maintenance cost is not generally strongly dependent on usage for electricity so they don't have wear issues as a general rule. If they aren't separating charges like this then they are Doing It Wrong.
The only reason the utilities have to be upset is just that they aren't making as much money.
https://www.we-energies.com/re...
Up to 17 cents cheaper per KWH (22c day, 5c night).
Assuming you blow 10kWh per day, primarily between 6am and 11pm, that's upwards of $2.20/day.
If you move your entire 10kWh load to the battery system and charge it over night, it drops you down to $0.50/day.
$1.70 savings per day. That's 2058 days to recoup the $3500 expenditure, or just a bit over 5 1/2 years. Over the ten year warranty period you'll save ~$3000, assuming electricity prices remain constant.
-Rick
You are assuming that it takes 10kW to charge the 10kWh battery and that the conversion from the DC battery voltage to AC house power is 1:1 as well. Tesla didn't publish charging efficiency specs unfortunately, but what is more likely is that charging the battery is 80% efficient (or less) and converting the battery power out to 220/120VAC is 80% efficient as well. Which means you are saving less than $0.80 per day. So, if you're lucky, you will just break even with the purchase price of the battery a year or so after the warranty runs out (if it doesn't die before then). And that is ignoring the time value of money and whatnot (simply leaving your money in a savings account would be a better use of your money because you'd at least get some interest). So no, this isn't going to save you anything.
to power 2 600W HID lights bulbs to grow weed off the grid. The battery would pay for itself in one crop of 8-10 weeks.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The battery is shown installed hanging on a wall. Its dimensions are H: 1300mm W: 860mm D:180mm, so it's too wide to fit in a closet. You also can't fit it under e.g. a workbench (in any orientation), so your only installation option is a blank expanse of wall. It also looks like the front panel is curved, so you can't install it lying on its back and then put anything on top of it.
So once again marketing (hey, let's make a glossy design that stands out and is impossible to hide) wins over practicality (let's make a rectangular box that can be installed somewhere unobtrusive).
The gubment is doing their best to drive oil prices down to kill fracking.
Cheap nat gas is too much competition for the Saudies and the greenies.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I like the ideal except for using Lithium Ion for the battery. I would have though Musk of all people could design something better? I wonder if anyone has considered the implications of all these batteries eventually needing to be replaced at some point in their life? How will that affect the environment? I remember similar selling points of nuclear power and how great it was because of its zero emissions? Of course we failed to consider the vast amounts of waste that stays volatile for hundreds of years. Solar appears to be far more useful and less negative secondary issues. Wind also seems to have much less over all effects.
Batteries are simply not very good and present some issues on how to deal with them at the end of life. The price is right, but I still wonder how well received this will be? The Tesla automobile is also a brilliant engineering creation but it has yet to produce any significant interest other then a small percent of overall car sales. I guess ever little bit helps, but to truly affect the goal your after, you have to get large numbers to participate.
On the prior article before the announcement, I posted about the economics not being that compelling, using my own actual numbers for consumption and peak vs off-peak pricing. I also noted that in some states, CA in particular, when peak pricing is ~60% higher than where I live, that it could start to be somewhat attractive.
That was all based on the pre-announcement rumored price of $13,000 for 10KWh. At $3,500 for 10KWh, I'd be looking at a 4-year payback, or, in other words, about a 25%/year ROI. To be clear, that's without solar PV panels to generate electricity, that's strictly charging the battery during off-peak hours and then running the house on it during peak hours. (Quick calculation based on battery price alone; total installed system more likely to see 15%-20% ROI, but still, not bad.)
I had wondered what Musk was up to and if the rumors were correct. Because you can already buy a 10KWh nickel-iron battery system for $13,000, so it did raise the question of what was the point? Well, now we know the point--1/4 the cost of existing competitive systems.
One big question not answered by the linked article, is what technology is used and what's the depth of discharge without damaging the battery. With nickel-iron, you can discharge most of the charge safely. With lead-acid technologies, you can't go below about 70% without shortening the lifespan. So 10KWh can actually mean anything between 3KWh and 8KWh of usable power--a huge range. (Hey, maybe Tesla's going to be consumer-friendly here--maybe 10KWh means 10KWh of usable power... As this kind of thing becomes more common in the home, it would make sense to rate battery systems that way, to make direct comparisons easier...)
It's about GBP30-40 for a 100Ah 12V car lead-acid battery on a random site. These are mass-produced, cheap and easily available. Granted that they are heavy and large, but... scaling up... that's 1.2KWh alone. We'd only need ten car batteries to match it. That's GBP300-400.
Why, then does it cost the equivalent of nearly $3,500 (GBP2200) for the same here?
Lead-acid != Li-ion.
First off, you cannot get 100% of the rated capacity of any battery. If you have a 100 Ah battery, with lead-acid the most you can probably practically extract from it is 40 Ah: any more than that and you risk damaging it and reducing both the amount it can charge up in the future, and the number of cycles it will last. With lithium (e.g. LiFePO4) you can extract 70 Ah from it and not harm it at all. So if you need 100 Ah in real life, you need to actually get a system rated for 300 Ah with Pb, but only 150 AH with Li.
Second, there's charging: with LiFePO4 you can charge a multiples of C and so refilling is a lot quicker. A 100 Ah lithium battery can be charged at 100, 200, or even 300 A without damage. Good luck getting those charge rates with lead. So if you're charging via solar, you don't need as many daylight hours, and if you're using a generator to top things off, then you don't have to burn as much fuel.
Seriously, yes they are more expensive, but comparing lithium to lead batteries is ridiculous as they are worlds apart. Lithium batteries are really changing things in the sailing/boating community for one:
http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/lifepo4_on_boats
What would I do with a device that output 2kWs and lasted 2 or 3 hours???
On an average day that would power my house for more than half a day. I wonder if it could be rigged to charge off of a small portable generator (3500 watt). Heck if it has some worthwhile capabilities I may get one as a backup power source for the house and to try to save a little on peak usage. Its a bit more expensive than the backup generators I've been looking at but with a much better warranty and far less expensive to run for the average power outage.
Neither my PowerBooks nor my Mac mini are trinkets.
However if you point me to a decent pad and a decent phone I gladly get rid of my iPad and iPhone.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There are raw materials needed to make batteries. Where on earth are the rare earth metals coming from to do this? Does Tesla have a new battery design that overcomes all the issues with the need for rare earth metals in batteries?
People seem to not realize tthat this stuff is rare. We would have depleted Steel itself if it were not for recycling.
I just did a price check and a 10kwh rolls royce deep cycle system with 4 of those batteries is about 1500 USD. Tesla wants 3000 to 3500. At that price, I could buy 20kwh to 30kwh in conventional lead acid batteries.
If you need 10 kWh, then you'll need to buy 20 or 30 with lead-based batteries. It is impossible to get the full rated capacity out of rechargeable batteries. If you drain it 100%, or even 80%, you risk damaging them.
For that 10 kWh RR deep cycle, at most you'll get out of it is 4-5 kWh. With lithium you'll probably be able to get 7 kWh. So if you actually use 10 kWh, then you'll need to buy 2-3x of the "raw" capacity with lead, but maybe 1.5-2x with lithium.
Am I missing something? Why would I pay TWICE as much per kilowatt hour?
You are missing the fact that just because it says 10 kWh on the sticker does not mean you can get 10 kWh in regular use (unless you want to wreck your batteries). There is a certain amount of "overhead" (like with RAID), and lithium has much less overhead than lead-based systems.
Do a search on "Depth of Discharge" for lead and lithium, and you'll see the usable charge for the latter is much better, so you don't need to buy the same amount of "raw" capacity to attain the same level of "useable" capacity.
This is the third time in as many weeks that they have announced this, at least on slashdot.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You have to compare sealed lead acid deep-cycle (SLA) batteries to the Tesla battery. The reason is standard car batteries can't be deep-cycled and the release hydrogen when charged (which could blow up an enclosed house). Cost-wise the Tesla battery is on-par with a good SLA setup while being smaller and lighter and a 10-year warranty. Right now it is a good deal. If the price drops significantly when the Gigafactory goes on-line it could be a game-changer.
Unsealed lead acid batteries are very safe indoors, they do, however, require venting to the exterior. This is neither complicated nor expensive. The simplest system is a plastic box, holes cut in the bottom, with a vent tube going straight up through the roof, or vented on a slant through the side of the home. And yes, that would meet safety code for homes everywhere (however, some places might require inspection).
The actual reason car batteries are useless is because they are not deep cycle batteries. The plates in car batteries are spongy. This permits them to output massive amounts of current (1000+ amps is easily available) but it reduces the amount of power that can be safely discharged from the battery without damaging the plates. Typically discharging more than 20% of capacity will cause permanent damage.
The correct lead acid technology would be deep cycle batteries. These use solid lead plates. A typical deep cycle battery would not be happy dispensing with more than 100 A of current without damage (thus they are paralleled when more power is required). However, they can be deeply discharged without damage. All deep cycle batteries allow 50% discharge, and many are warranted to provide 70% of their capacity without damage.
>Cost-wise the Tesla battery is on-par with a good SLA setup while being smaller and lighter and a 10-year warranty.
Not even close. Deep cycle batteries cost about 50% more than the equivalent standard car battery. In the previous posters case, that brings the cost from 300 GBP to 450 GBP. Admiteddly, the enclosure would cost about another 50 GBP, and deep cycle batteries will typically last 5 (though 7 is not impossible), not 10 years, bringing the cost up to 950 GBP.
If you feel I'm wrong about this, take a look at some RV forums. Although, I expect that they'll be excited about the Tesla batteries because they take up less space and weigh far less. Both space and weight are premiums for an RV, whereas in a home they are much less valuable.
You are correct in the corner-case that is Hawaii.
In New England, however, our local grid operator (ISO-NE) has not even attempted to implement the most basic technology to even see solar's effect on the grid.
Yet our local electric utilities such as National Grid are trying to neuter residental solar because of its "effects on the grid"
In other words, they haven't even tried to be pro-active about potential problems before they launched a war on solar. It is all about the situation at-hand. For example, yes, driving could kill you however if you drive drunk with your hands tied behind your back whose fault is that? Do we ban driving or fix the problems?
If I'm a "wind/solar" or other non-24x7-generating company and I know what fraction of my customers have a several-hour-backup power supply, I can offer them lower rates in exchange for "turning them off" or even "buying electricity back from their batteries" in times of peak demand. This will let me offer services to more customers than I normally could handle.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Hey, I'm not the one drinking the smooth creamy Elon Musk spoogeshakes here. I'm strictly a Bill Gates cum drinker.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The grid is not only maintained, it is also "operated". And that cost is not fixed but depends on the amount of power you transport.
Which is exactly what I said. Consumption (delivery) of power is a variable cost. If you consume no power because you have solar panels then no cost is incurred to the power company. Maintaining the infrastructure to deliver that power is largely a fixed cost so if an end consumer wants to tie into the grid they should rightly incur their share of the cost of maintaining that infrastructure.
I buy power at point A and sell it at point B, for that I need to transport the power over minimum 2 grids, a transportation grid from A, reaching close to B and a distribution grid at B, where the customer is connected.
Those are variable costs as they vary with units of power sold.
However: there are transportation losses, 5% ... 7%.
Simply part of the variable cost of power sold. Similar to shoplifting losses for a retail store. It's a known part of the cost of the product being sold. If they don't sell the power then no cost is incurred to buy it or produce it.
The grid loss has to be compensated by the grid operator, hence they are the ones who have reserve power plants and balancing power plants attached to the grid. And hence transporting power over a grid costs nearly the same amount as producing it.
What price the power company pays for the power delivered to end customers and where it comes from is largely irrelevant to the end customer. Electrons are fungible assets. Whether they produce it themselves or they buy it on the spot market or buy it on contract isn't important as far as you and I are concerned. They are paying for some fixed amount of grid maintenance and some variable amount of power delivery regardless of who actually produces the power. The equation doesn't change just because they buy the power from a third party.
Seriously, the man is a genious, but batteries for homes is not that good, unless it is possible for utility to control them as well. At the very least, Tesla should make available server software that utility can interact with home batteries when owner allows. In seasonal weather with high demands and when solar can be blocked via clouds or length of day, it is best to allow utility to control when to charge them , or buy from them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Alternatively look into nickel-iron batteries. They are way more expensive and about 50% energy density of lead-acid, but are much more tolerant of abuse and can last 50+ years.
Why pay for recycling when you can just re-badge and resell?
That's me in the winter throwing open the windows for the breeze when it is 45 outside. And at night when it's in the 20's, I definitely want the window open. Nothing like having some snow to refresh your sleep. Oh, wait, you probably mean Celsius. :)
THANKS A LOT, Elon!
How the hell are we going to kill off the Stupids if you remove a primary source of carbon monoxide poisoning?!
Ok, to be fair, this might balance out push-to-stop on IC automobiles.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That helps someone with solar panels, but more exciting is that it helps everyone - just just people with their own energy sources.
These shift load on the system - they don't just make solar energy viable, they smooth out load on the power network, and make alternative energy sources that may not be reliable much more viable.
Not to mention suddenly everyone is much less dependent on reliable power, so it can eventually bring the possibility of reducing the extreme availably requirements of power - you could get a note saying power would be shut down ro an hour over the weekend, so they could do infrastructure changes.
At $3k it is a no-brainer to buy one of these.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What happens to these batteries at the end of the 10 year lifespan? Can they be repurposed? Are they recyclable? Do they use rare earths?
The bet is not just on arbitrage, but that within 10 years you will install solar power of some kind, because this battery makes solar collection far more useful to most people.
That seems like a good bet, especially for someone who buys the battery... and you ignore the utility of whole house power backup/conditioning.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Lithium ion batteries are great for mobile. They are far from the best available solution for stationary power. There are a lot of battery companies out there with safer, less-expensive, but less energy-dense battery chemistries.
Elon Musk needs to sell a lot of lithium ion batteries as part of his business model, and he understands how to work the system incredibly well. I just hope that this prettily-packaged bad solution to a real problem doesn't damage the ability of others to build good solutions.
Cogeneration is a great example of a naturally home-based or factory-based solution, because it captures heat that would otherwise be wasted, puts it to work, and eliminates distribution losses. And battery backup is needed to make the grid more flexible, but should be done with appropriate tech. Power shifting from one time slot to another would be much more sensibly done with batteries designed for stationary use. And, except for the advantage in a power failure, there is little reason to locate batteries in people's homes. To the extent anyone wants batteries at home, I hope they'll at least choose more appropriate batteries than lithium ion.
Some do the same thing in southern california areas were it gets well over 100F at times. Its a desert thing, wide temperature swings between day and night. Admittedly some people are lazy and just run the AC rather than opening up, but not all. Assuming of course they could afford the bill in the first place.
Now for other regions of the country it doesn't cool off at night. Away from the asphalt and concrete heat sinks in a partially wooded suburban area outside of New York City it hit 91F during a hot spell and "cooled off" to 90F at night.
Incidentally, 100F in the desert is far more comfortable than 90F in a more humid region like NYC.
So Elon's price performance ratio fails to beat golf cart batteries. AWESOMENESS!! TECH HERO!
I used to think the Steve Jobs worship around here was bad. But compared to the slovenly Elon Musk dick slurping that permeates slashdot now, Jobs was nothing.
That is not even close to true, yet.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
I personally celebrate Carbon Belch Day every year. I have 19 working internal combustion motors in my possession. This includes 4 cars totaling 15.7 liters, 5 completely frivolous dirt bikes/ATVs, various lawn/yard implements, and a tractor. Some of these engines are very dirty, like a 150HP two-stroke outboard and a pre-emissions turbo diesel. I also have two barbeques and a bunch of weeds that need to be burned. Here is my plan. I will get up early and get every motor running simultaneously for one hour. Note that I will have to run a garden hose to the boat motor, which is also environmentally insensitive ;) Then I will shut down all of the motors, hook up to the fifth wheel, and burn a ton of diesel towing it to a campsite.
Of course, the fifth wheel will be loaded with dirt bikes. We will run the generator in the RV and the air conditioner whether we need it or not, and tear up the fragile desert ecosystem with the dirt bikes. Then we will use charcoal lighter fluid to get the barbeque fired up and grill some nice steaks for dinner. The other dish will be hamburgers. Then we will build a big honking campfire and drink frosty beverages until late. Sounds like a plan!
Musk thinks the market for home batteries will expand to at least two billion, eventually.
This is a HUGE number. There are only ~1.5 billion houses/households in the world, the vast majority of which could not begin to afford something like this, even on lease.
Also, it's hard to see where the demand comes from. If these things take 5-7 years to pay off using nighttime pricing, that's not very convincing. Better to spend that money on insulation or better windows. The argument for home batteries is better if you already have solar, but it's still going to be years before solar tops 2% of U.S. homes.
Supposing 10% of US homes go solar by 2025 and they all buy home batteries, then that's maybe ~12 million units. If US units account for 10% of world consumption (more likely I'd say 35%), than we're looking at 120 million units top in this rosy scenario.
'course, I'm just eyeballing various numbers. I'd love to see somebody do the math. Hopefully Musk has firmer numbers/models to support his optimism (either that or he's counting net demand over the next fifty years). I really want to like Musk, but sometimes I fear he's just blowing a bunch of hot-air. :-\ (Come to think of it, that's what the real Tesla ended up doing. :O)
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
The battery is good for two things:
You missed one. A third thing it is good for is grid level load leveling. If there is storage capacity in the power network you can significantly reduce the effect of fluctuating demand to the companies generating the power. Coal and nuclear plants take a while to respond to changing demand. If demand spikes then the power stations have more time to react.
lead acid batteries need water to added regularly but does this tesla battery need any other to add regularly?