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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.
You didn't even read his post before replying.
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Have you calculated the cost difference in hourly rates, your yearly use and the total price of such a setup? How long will it take to pay itself back before you see any financial gains?
IMHO, this is totally the wrong way to look at this technology. Personally I don't care if it's more expensive than conventional power, if I could install a small wind turbine and a few solars on my property and charge this battery, it's off the grid for my acre. Totally worth it. People need to stop thinking in terms of 'its more expensive than conventional power.' That is the wrong way to look at this, IMHO.
First, none of these things move forward without some enthusiast buy-in. Loads of things are stupid from a strict dollar-efficiency perspective but people still do them anyway. Computers held fairly low value in terms of dollar efficiency for decades, but enthusiasts found them worthwhile and helped move that industry forward.
Second, you confuse cost and value. You know the cost of the utility power and the off-grid generation and storage components but you don't know the value to the consumer of being off-grid. What you see as a splurge they may see as some kind of inherent value.
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!!!
So if everyone avails themselves of the cheap electricity in the middle of the night to store for use during the day, the excess capacity vanishes and instead we get an actual load needing to be catered for in additional capacity. So the cheap rate would be discontinued due to changes in consumption habits.
And when that happens the power companies would need far fewer power plants because peak usage would drop dramatically, perhaps around half what it would be otherwise. This sounds like a great situation.
Temporary solutions to many problems is all we need as technology continuously improves. Take advantage of Time of Use rates today, and in five years switch to primarily solar power as the prices drop even further. Everything doesn't have to be a fix that will last a lifetime.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
They will also offer an additional 10-year warranty that can be purchased at the end of the original for a comfortable 20-year warranty total.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.