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Tesla's Household Battery: Costs, Prices, and Tradeoffs
Technologist Ramez Naam (hat tip to Tyler Cowen's "Marginal Revolution" blog) has taken a look at the economics of Tesla's new wall-mounted household battery system, and concludes that it's "almost there," at least for many places in the world -- and seems to already make sense in some. From his analysis: For some parts of the US with time-of-use plans, this battery is right on the edge of being profitable. From a solar storage perspective, for most of the US, where Net Metering exists, this battery isn’t quite cheap enough. But it’s in the right ballpark. And that means a lot. Net Metering plans in the US are filling up. California’s may be full by the end of 2016 or 2017, modulo additional legal changes. That would severely impact the economics of solar. But the Tesla battery hedges against that. In the absence of Net Metering, in an expensive electricity state with lots of sun, the battery would allow solar owners to save power for the evening or night-time hours in a cost effective way. And with another factor of 2 price reduction, it would be a slam dunk economically for solar storage anywhere Net Metering was full, where rates were pushed down excessively, or where such laws didn’t exist.
That is also a policy tool in debates with utilities. If they see Net Metering reductions as a tool to slow rooftop solar, they’ll be forced to confront the fact that solar owners with cheap batteries are less dependent on Net Metering. ... And the cost of batteries is plunging fast. Tesla will get that 2x price reduction within 3-5 years, if not faster.
I don't know how this guy wrote the entire article without realizing it, but as Tesla explained in a Bloomberg article the cost of the 10 kWh battery's full installation plus inverters is $7100, not $3500, if you buy outright, and $5000 if you lease. It's just way too expensive. Battery tech needs to come down to under $100/kWh to become more mainstream, and solar panels need to drop to about half or even less of what they are now.
Coal is far more cost effective.
Tesla batteries use a lot of lithium. They haven't announced what this thing uses, but a Model S battery pack uses 25kg of lithium. Assuming it's around thr same amount, then you get 40 packs for every metric tonne of lithium produced. Global lithium production is around 34,000 tonnes, most of which is ear marked for cell phones. Ramping up production is hard because mining lithium is expensive and difficult. Therefore if this thing starts getting any actual sales traction, then the price of lithium will skyrocket, affecting any chance of the price of the PowerWall coming down.
Is it possible?
Time will alter everything. Reality is, the more batteries produced the cheaper they will become and much more interestingly, the more batteries installed, the fewer people paying for electrical mains infrastructure, the much more expensive per user it becomes. That economic boulder rolling down a hill, faster and faster and faster, inevitable. Tesla still needs to do a complete system, ready to install by franchised installers (ensure quality installs), keep it simple. Not to forget, the Tesla power pack would be a strictly utility device, much like adding air conditioning, or a verandah, it adds capital value to the property. So forget the incumbent PR=B$ about measuring it against electricity charges because that is only part of it's value, it has real capital asset value and that value also needs to be added in, to more effectively compare it what is in affect rent and burn (rent your part of the infrastructure and burn your capital inputs).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"modulo additional legal changes", its all short punchy sentences, full of weird words. I'm guessing cocaine.
Really, first off, what is "Net Metering". What does "filling up" mean in the context of "Net Metering", what does "modulo" mean in the context.
"another factor of 2 price reduction" in what? Battery? Solar? Some sort of depreciation in the capital cost of the equipment? Over what years is it depreciated currently?
"That is also a policy tool in debates with utilities." WTF? Tool? Like a wrench?
I hate these stories, if they make it through the firehose it usually means they're promoted by sock puppets.
All the discussion I've seen about this Tesla announcement has focused on [1] time-shifting electricity demand and [2] storing electricity from on-site generation. Those are the major uses, no argument. But another one is serving as a whole-house UPS. In some parts of the US (like the NE, where I live), a LOT of people have gasoline or natural gas/propane generators that automatically kick on when the power goes out. Many of these system, which are often as expensive or more so than Tesla's battery system, get pressed into service only a couple of times per year, and then for a couple of hours. A battery system can't replace a generator for long outages, of course, but for short-term issues, this is a non-trivial extra benefit.
You mean it'll be half the price (i.e. a 50% price reduction)?
To me a 2x price reduction would mean that you multiply the price by two and then minus it from the original price. So in 3-5 years the battery will cost -$3500.
Hey, at that price I might actually be interested!
Musk knows that to reduce the cost of EVs, the cost of making batteries has to go down, and the easiest way to do that, AND the best way to build up infrastructure, is to ramp up production.
That's what this is all about - not about making money, at least in the short term. Tesla just needs to have sales drive (and justify) the increase in production, and when the price of making those batteries drop, EV sales will become more attractive to a larger customer base, thus ramping up production more... rinse, lather, repeat.
The Sun-vs-Electricity-Price-BNEF-Grid-Parity.jpg image incorrectly puts Australia's electricity rates at around 22c/kWh whereas it's closer to 28c/kWh in most places. This makes the Tesla storage tank even more attractive for them.
TFA makes much of the Tesla battery as a replacement for backup generators.... at 7kWh, it's equivalent to about 4 hours from a low end generator.
Not anything that's going to replace my Honda and it's 20 gallons of gas any time soon.
Lead acid batteries are still about half the price per kWh (look near the bottom, at the 48v x 400Ah bank), and come with the same 10 year warranty. Cars care about weight, houses don't.
The new thing here isn't battery storage of solar power, it's lithium-ion batteries instead of lead acid. The price performance for lithium-ion can't compete with lead acid yet, when weight isn't a factor.
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..either you are?, or you aint.
OTOH, in a real crisis, that might be the last 20 gallons of gas you get your hands on for a good while. The solar powered system refuels itself.
Companies like SolarCity basically install solar systems for no money up front, and then lease them back to you for a period. For many houses, even with these fees, the SolarCity systems will save the homeowner quite a bit of money. Licenses to sell power back to the grid are usually restricted, even in states they are allowed. If you have a battery system installed, you will no longer have to sell your excess solar energy back to the grid. You'll simply be able to store it in your battery for later use. Thus, homeowners with these systems may not have to apply for licenses for their solar systems, since they will not be doing net-metering. This will allow many users to install solar panels who couldn't before. It removes the ability for utilities and/or state governments to restrict the number of homes with solar panels. This is why these batteries will likely have a huge impact.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
in the ice storm of 1998, we were without power for 10 days. Honda is my friend....
Solar in the ice and snow strikes me as a dicey proposition
Most of Australia experiences Summer temperatures over the maximum operating listed in this specification, and for remote locations this maximum temperature is exceeded every day for weeks on end.
This may be a design issue so a higher specification version could be issued of a physics issue and then it is no go for Aus.
How much is timothy getting per story?
It doesn't when your panels are under twelve inches snow and and a couple inches of ice, which is when I tend to lose power.
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7 is more than half a day's use UK average(13), so with enough solar and draining from that rather than the battery during sunlight it may well work without.
Generators run very inefficiently, you waste the excess and have to run at a inefficient rate if you try to follow the load. If you can run the generator at optimal and then turn it off you will save fuel, quite a bit, in fact depending on load factors some sites quote 80% savings though even 40% would be quite significant enough to make it worth considering.
Well you gotta look at this from the perspectives of those that deal with intermittent electric or money doesn't matter.
Anywhere where the grid electric isn't 100% uptime, this would be a godsend. When I was in Baghdad, Rolling Blackouts every 4 hours this would have been wonderful.
Armed Forces, Four to Ten of these on a couple army carts and a large portable generator all of a sudden makes life easier for a Company to deal with electrical issues.
Even one of these and a small generator is enough to make a difference in a small African village.
This is a game changer even at the current prices.
Not to mention you can get natural gas or propane generators. The former almost never runs out and if you use the latter, you are probably sitting on a month's reserve.
As of 2015, the total levelized cost of coal is in the ballpark of solar/wind. (Levelized cost includes capital costs, but does not include pollution costs -- consider how cheap coal is that we count the cost of medical bills, let alone AGW.) In a few decades, it will be cheaper to use renewables than mine coal to run an existing coal plant. Notice how fast Kodak went out of business? That is what the coal industry is staring down.
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Now the maximum temperature for the majority of Australian households in summer rarely if ever reaches or exceeds that. There is a large amount of the continent where the temperature exceeds that - however its very sparsely populated (you are looking at the central deserts after all) and has minimal infrastructure anyway.
For the majority of the population (i.e. major population centres on the coast) it's quite reasonable.
Why isn't the cost of solar panels included in any of the calculations about the Tesla's battery? What use is the battery if you don't have a way to charge it "for free"? Or am I missing something?
This should bring the Kock Brothers Cock Suckers out to scream bloody murder.
AMightyWind has had his head bashed against the wall too often from both brothers, so he should be here.
IF you cut the cost in half, and IF you never install this somewhere than the California paradise where the sun always shines, then MAYBE its a workable solution, albeit one which ties up 10k of capital - hint: most people don't have this anyway.
1% problems.
What you are getting with the lead-acid is a BATTERY.
What you are getting with Tesla is a SYSTEM that is designed to integrate with our grid while managing the batteries.
To use those lead acid batteries, you will need a lot of extra parts that will add up in costs.
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IF you put this in line with your generator, the generator doesn't need to run as often and doesn't have to ramp to follow load -- it can run at it's peak efficiency. Having this in your house with make that 20 gallons of gas go as far as 40 without it. The military has figured this out and are starting to battery buffer their generators at Forward Operating Bases -- fuel convoys are the most ran convoy, so reducing those by half really reduces attacks and the logistics train.
20 Gallons is a LONG operating time. My generator uses around 1.6l of fuel per hour (3kW). 20 Gallons is 75l so 2 days of non stop usage. Admittedly in an end of the world scenario the panels will produce energy for longer I think you will have other concerns if getting more fuel has become that much of an issue.
If only there were something that melts snow.
What could do that?
I won't be getting this Tesla battery, for a number of reasons, but I'd like a home battery system. I live in a condo and I haven't have a backup generator. Nowhere I'd be allowed to put it. A battery system though, that I could have.
If I had my choice, I'd get a Generac whole house system but there are tradeoffs that you have to make when you want to live certain places.
I woulda had first post, but its dark out and I dont have a tesla battery yet to store my solar power :(
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
thats when we went out and bought one, tied it into our home and now when we lose power if its out for more than a few hours, our home is 75 percent powered (we didnt bother wiring in EVERYTHING, as we simply put in a sub panel for the essentials
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Battery storage is also pretty inefficient unless you have ideal temperature and battery state conditions.
Of course, in America, we use less than 11,000KWH / year for the average home or about 30 KWH / day.
Of that, about 1/2 is used by HVAC (50 KWH / day when AC is going, and less than 20 KWH when AC is not going). And how much gets used at nighttime? Maybe 10-15 KWH.
So, the 10KWH makes a GREAT backup for the average home, if you are very easy on the electricity (i.e. just 2-3 circuits, and only important things like refrig, a string of lights, comm, Furnace/House Fan, maybe microwave ).
And that is with say decent solar on your home.
OTOH, if you have batteries, you can combine that with a lightweight generator, such as yours, so that it can be ran part time, with battery back-up.
Tesla must have some big bucks to fund four stories in only a week on the new Tesla Household battery,
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Great Plan. Put class 4 burning metals in my house? Burning 500 lbs blocks of lithium? Make it look sexy with pretty casing. It is still a touchy technology. Ask Boeing and Tesla. What would my insurance be?
This is stupid. Lead batteries are terrible for long term deep cycle. Nickle-Iron is way better for stationary applications where a little mass and volume don't mess up a vehicle power-to-weight ratio. The ONLY problem is the 40-100 year lifespan of the cells. No repeat market. No exotic supply chain. Too low tech. If you added a tenth of the monitoring you would have less hassle and real independence. The only reason the cost is too high now is that the Nickle-Iron cell production infrastructure is boutique. Put it in a Pininfarina designed box and sell them for 1/2 the price of a lithium cell.
Somebody could really put a pin in the Musk balloon for a few 100 million dollars.
If only there were something that melts snow.
What could do that?
Why don't you crawl up on my roof during the next howling snowstorm and demonstrate your snow melting technique for us? We'll simulate a power outage to make it realistic so the will be no outdoor lighting to help you. Have fun with that.
Could you say Net Metering a few more times in the article? ... 5 times in synopsis, 10 times in original article.
In many ways utilities may prefer solar customers with on site storage, as it could eliminate need for two way power converters back to power lines while continuing to flatten daily demand curve.
I have battery backups for various critical systems, but going with massive battery at the power connect to the house is value add even if the solar/storage formula is still scaling up, more reliable power. Since batteries stack, this could also be a boon to off grid development in general.
The real threat to the utilities are the industrial batteries. Huge chunks of load from commercial customers could simple go completely off grid, which may have the ironic effect of making residential grid power more expensive, putting even more pressure on home owners to drop off the grid as well.
Man, why you gotta dis door nails? Leave the door nails alone!
Or could move it.
Meanwhile, all that snow is up there, insulating your home from the cold winter that is causing all that snow to pile up on it, reducing your heating needs significantly. LED lights are cheap to run and take almost no power. For 10 days, invest in a small kerosene tank and a camping stove or three.
If it'swindy during that howling snowstorm, you will have lost your external power anyway. But your wind turbine will be loving it and producing a lot of power.
So, really, why are there only problems for those who don't want "green" power, solely because it's "green", therefore cannot be "power"? Or is it just fake grass moving?
It does? Then why is your house getting over 43C some days? Run the damn AC! Keep your temps below 28 and you'll be comfortable. In winter, keep it above 10, wear a few more layers and socks/slippers.
And the price of so much as flushing the toilet during the night will just skyrocket so hard that no intellectually minded fellow can pull a decent all nighter for the forseeable future. This has got to be the lamest doomsday scenario I have ever seen.
I know - everyone is always hating on door nails. I myself would regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.
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...solar's ROI becomes reasonable, those putting in solar are just blowing money.
7kWh should be plenty. That is (on a regular 110V grid) 15A continuous for 4h. I doubt some LED lights, an efficient fridge/freezer and some charging devices use that much.
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Tesla's vehicles charge to only 80% capacity by default, because this GREATLY improves the number of charge/discharge cycles you can get from the battery. (Li-Ion/LiPo batteries get "stressed" out the most at full charge.) Tesla gives owners the option to charge that last 20% if they expect to need the range.
Are the 7/10 kWh ratings of these units the raw rating of the batteries in the pack, or have they already been derated to the 80% level?
If they've already been derated to the 80% level, that resolves some of the potential conflicts in terms of lifetime indicated in the article. (1000 cycle "rule of thumb" vs. Tesla's warranty.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I am shocked that more people do not see what is happening. Big power is in deep doodoo. And some consumers who are slow to change over to new ways will get hit with super expensive power bills. If big power wants to stay in place they will need to provide very cheap electricity compared to current rates. Chances are big power can't do that.
Real crisis like for example a long blizzard, or a hurricane that just passed near you?
Do tell us how your solar cells will perform in an actual crisis, rather than imagined one.
Inefficient in comparison to what? Batteries that waste significant amounts of energy on being charged and then even more on discharge?
I can understand the comparison to things like large plants with burners rated in multi-megawatt range, but that's not what we're talking about, is it?
It's time for a household DC voltage standard. 120VAC is only needed for motorized appliances, some like my furnace use DC motors already. Electronics no longer need high voltage AC internally. Give us a 5, 12, and 24 or 48 VDC system with a single jack, no inverter needed. Use solar, wind or AC-DC converter to create low VDC with battery storage for peak/off peak usage.
so what are you talking about???
The biggest issue with converting a vehicle to an electric vehicle is getting light relatively inexpensive batteries. These might just be the ticket to that problem for DIY electric vehicle. Previously getting and making a LiON pack was either more expensive or harder to source the cells. This may solve the battery and charger issue and allow people to make decent ranged electric conversions for a lot less money.
On the contrary, when you clear your panels off they will get 20-60% extra insolation from those high reflective white surfaces.
How about a large earthquake on the New Madrid fault in Missouri takes out most of the gas pipelines in the central US. There could very well be precious little electricity or gasoline available for an extended period of time.
I don't know why everyone who replied is so focused on snow. If the blizzard is that bad, you'll be sitting around with nothing better to do than figure out how to clear snow off a few dozen square feet of slippery surface. If you do a half-assed job with a roof rake, the sun hitting a south sloping roof would generally finish the task quickly.
Most of the country doesn't even get hurricanes. However, if a hurricane has ripped the roof off of your house, then you've got bigger fish to fry than a lack of electricity.
Because snow happens for extended amounts of time every year in relevant regions which are huge, whereas huge earthquakes happen only at faultline regions and only once a century or so.
Also, "severing pipelines" on regional level doesn't really matter in case of earthquake for single household in case we're discussing. If you get severed connections from disaster, chances are that you either leave the region if roads are still operable and logistics work until basic damage control has been done by emergency services, or they are too damaged to allow you to leave and you're stuck and limited to what you have directly on site.
In which case, you likely have far more energy in a single tank of your ICE generator than in a battery bank.
On a last note, as a Finn with experience in actually clearing snow I would like to simply state that you have no clue on how hard it is to clear snow from the roof to the level where solar panel would do anything at all.
WTF? Every sentence in that argument makes zero sense.
What makes lithium such a good basis for a battery is that it has an atomic weight of just 3. It's the lightest natural metal on the periodic table. With such a small atomic weight - it's density is immense, you can pack a gazillion lithium atoms in a tiny volume.
Atomic weight has little to do with ion size, well unless you are comparing very different atomic masses. According to this page Al3+ is smaller than Li+ and the atomic radius of Al vs Li is smaller too.
The low atomic weight of lithium (7) is helpful compared to Al(27) but batteries are composed of many other components so it does not make a huge difference.
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Apparently this thing will deliver about 2kW sustained when in use. What? My water heater draws 2.2kW. It wont even be able to serve me tea, and I'm not even British. My AC draws about 1.2kW. My iron draws more than my water cooker.
Sorry, this is, at this, and quite significantly lower, price point(s) is a joke.
Want to run a 24V DC "RV electrical system / yacht electrical system" from a DC sub-panel in my house running efficient DC fridge, LED lights, small inverter for laptops etc, and maybe a larger inverter for a diversion load in summer.
Also, our PV modules on our roof need to be entirely in parallel because lots of partial-array shading at various times of day.
So our input voltage range (to batteries) will be around 30V and the output should be 24V DC.
Anyone seen the spec. for input voltage range for the Tesla Powerwall?
Also, anyone know where one can get a 400V to 24V efficient and safe DC/DC converter for the output side of the Powerwall?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Today I learned that there is no difference between losing a dollar a day and losing a million dollars an hour.
All electric, hot water heater, a/c. Try to keep the temp on the a/c around 73-75 F but most of the time its on, even in 'winter' months here in Central Florida.
I don;t know how others fare and obviously your mileage may vary due to occupancy, where you live, if you stay at home or not etc. We are currently in a 2,000 sq ft , 4 bed , 2 bath house.
Using my usage of about 2,000 kwh per month, I would have to figure out how much solar/battery usage I would need for that type of usage and when I would break even.
Which point makes no sense to you? The fact that snow comes every year? That fact huge earthquakes occur approximately once a century? That due to relative energy density, a single tank of an average household sized backup generator will hold much more energy than a battery bank like one advertised in the story?
Ok, I'll grant that I could understand your first sentence. However, if it were really a problem, installing a heating loop under the array would fix the problem at the touch of a button. For the DIYer, some plastic tubing, antifreeze, and aquarium pump, and a 5 gallon tank of propane would do the job. I'll also point out that although it snows frequently, that's not typically a disaster. It's also only been 200 years since a mammoth earthquake that would, if it happened today, paralyze this nation for months. That's only three lifespans, so the odds of witnessing that again may not be as low as you assume.
Your entire second paragraph is an incomprehensible bowl of word soup. You seem to be advocating that 50 million people without gas hop in their cars and find a hotel in a different region of the continent.
Your last paragraph disregards the whole point of the damned thread: that you can recharge the batteries indefinitely without fuel. Even when keeping a dangerous amount of volatile gasoline on your premises, you get a couple days max of electricity generation, and as I pointed out, natural gas generators are no panacea either.
as an owner of an electric car, it would be amazing if tesla (and others) would allow you to plug your car into these battery packs so as to leverage all the infrastructure of the house battery (heavy duty terminals to your house, etc) but add the additional 24kwh+ of power stored in your car.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I've got a Nissan Leaf with a 84 mile range and I rarely have to modify my plans due to range.
I can't imagine that a Tesla with a 260 mile range could give anyone anxiety.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
in the ice storm of 1998, we were without power for 10 days. Honda is my friend....
You got in your car and drove away? Good thinking!
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
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Do you also get out of your car to defrost the rear window?
Support this, or admit that it's bullshit.
My understanding is that Li Ion batteries have a lifetime of 1000 full charge cycles or roughly the proportional number of partial cycles. This means paying 3000 USD for 1000 cycles of 7 KWh, 43 cents per KWh. Why is this interesting for storing electricity other than possibly for emergencies where the cost may be less important? And if one is truly concerned about emergencies, why not buy an electric generator at a fraction of the cost and keep a 20 liter can of gas at 10 KWh per liter? Am I missing something fundamental here?