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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.
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.
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.
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'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.
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?
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.
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.
Uhhhhhh...gigafactory?
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
They said that 30 years ago, too.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
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.
> Anyone else remember when Carter put solar panels on the White House?
Reagan had them taken down. Can't have the White House supporting (even implicitly) the downfall of the fossil fuel industry, can we?
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.
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*
They have a different product for utilities that will have longer service life and be available in much larger blocks of 100kWh that can be tied together. They wouldn't be used to replace pumped-storage or the like, but to help smooth out power. One of the constant complaints of those against wind and solar (which can include the power companies themselves) is that the varying input from short-term fluctuations is too hard to handle. With banks of batteries like this, it alleviates much of that problem.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
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...)
What would I do with a device that output 2kWs and lasted 2 or 3 hours???
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.
Just put the solar panels in the grow room - boom, free power!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
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.
No, with Elon it's more of a religious thing.
Sort of like saying Mass.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
And they were right. It only came back into fashion again recently. But throughout the 80's and 90's, solar and wind energy all but disappeared from the zeitgeist.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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.
The previous article lost its charge.
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
Not just fashion. Solar cells improved a lot - those you can get now are a lot more efficient than they were back then, which means home solar power... still isn't economical. But it's within sight of economical. It's just expensive, not ridiculous like it used to be.
Uhhhhhh...gigafactory?
"That's not an argument!!!"
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
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.
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
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.
That might all be true, except for 2 things:
1. If Elon can get enough early adopters to buy in, he might get his costs down. If this were $2K instead of $3,500, those numbers change quite a bit.
2. If the night power is provided by hydro or wind and the day peak power is provided by natural gas generators, then by time-shifting your power, you're producing less CO2. This matters more to some people, less to others, but it is a point to consider.
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
Yes, implicitly.
As in, complete theater, the politics of perception being far more important than reality. And making about a 0% difference in WH power usage.
But mostly, they just looked like shit.
Uhhhhhh...gigafactory?
"That's not an argument!!!"
Yeah, it's called posting on an iPad :(
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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?