Slashdot Mirror
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.
Net metering is when you have an energy producer (solar, wind, fuel cell, etc) that can at times produce more power than your house demand. The meter could flow backwards, meaning you are credited for the energy you produce. Some states don't have that, where the meter only spins one way, forward, so any back fed energy is blocked or has to be dumped to a battery or resistive load.
Time of use means you are charged different rates for electricity at different times of the day, as a function of wholesale price fluctuations. This is good and bad, since you lose price security but you can get the most benefit out of conservation.
Mixing the two lets you use a battery to arbitrage the price of energy, where you charge a battery at low prices and discharge at high price times. This works best with wind generation that tends to overproduce at night.
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.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This guy copy-pasted his entire review from Gizmodo.
He's a plaigerist, not a technologist.
he's listed as the author on Gizmodo...