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Orange County Developer To Install Tesla Batteries In Two Dozen Buildings (computerworld.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-kind-of-power dept.

Lucas123 writes: The Irvine Company, a Newport Beach-based real estate developer that is a dominant landlord in Orange County, plans to install Tesla commercial batteries in two dozen of its buildings around Irvine Spectrum and John Wayne Airport. The project is the first of its kind of that size. The batteries will charge during non-peak hours and distribute power to the buildings during peak hours, a process that's expected to save the developer up to 10% of its energy costs or about $1 million a year.

12 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Not so fast... by Firethorn · · Score: 4, Informative

    $30M to install? I'm seeing roughly $600k, at $25k per pop, per building.

    The thing to remember about commercial building electric rates is that you not only pay a charge based on electrical usage, but also a 'peak power demand' surcharge. By reducing any peaks in power usage, it saves money on their bills.

    If it saves anywhere near $1M/year, a roughly $1M investment is a foolish bargain to refuse.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
    1. Re:Not so fast... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      I think the $25K figure is per battery, not per building, as 100 kWh doesn't seem liket nearly enough to offset power usage for any decent sized commercial building. So, each building will likely have multiple batteries, from what I could see in the images shown. I'd bet on that $30 million figure being accurate.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:Not so fast... by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

      Yes, it's $25k per battery, each battery can store 100kWh, and they are saying that all of the installed batteries will be able to offset 10MW of reserve capacity. However specs for the battery seem to be a bit sparse so I don't know how fast the battery can discharge or even the physical size of the battery. The article mentioned that the batteries at the first site would take up five parking spaces (I can't see one being that large).

      The home models provide a continuous 5kW of power but that would be too low for this one. If we assume that they want to almost discharge their batteries during the peak period and leave enough for a short backup period let's guess seven hours for a full discharge which would give us a continuous 14kW power, approximately. So then they would be ordering on the order of 700 batteries which works out to $17.5M leaving the rest for installation.

    3. Re:Not so fast... by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

      I was thinking that the $1M a year was probably the savings just from buying electricity off-peak and using it on-peak. The article mentions that the electricity supplier would then be able to ask them to switch to the batteries when there was very high demand. Normally companies that do this, or shut down some equipment, get rebates so that probably is on top of the figure quoted. And I'm sure that they are getting a good price with all of this publicity they are generating for Tesla.

      But yes, a 30 year payback isn't normally something a company would do. So either the owner is an eco-warrior that's trying to prevent fossil fuel peak power generation plants from running as much or there's some accounting that isn't being shared.

    4. Re:Not so fast... by Khyber · · Score: 2

      That still makes PowerPacks a horrible deal.

      http://www.alibaba.com/product...

      I just finished an e-mail exchange with that company. I negotiated $75 a pop for the 12V 200Ah Gel SLA batteries when you get minimum order quantity of 50, which would be needed to match the PowerPack's storage levels.

      $3,750. For the price of one PowerWall, I can match the PowerPack's storage capacity using SLA batteries. At the largest dimensions for the battery, I could run 50 (10 stacked vertically x 5 stacks) in a roughly 8.5' tall x 6.5' wide x 1' deep enclosure with self-powered gas/heat ventilation, done safely. That's roughly the same size of the cabinets currently used to house PowerPacks in Jackson, Florida at a refrigeration plant, except 1/2 to 1/3 as deep.

      The SLA is also deep-cycle and can withstand serious drain far better than Lithium cells. It can also handle higher peak current draw (though not as much as if I were to go with straight non-gel SLA.) The lithium cells have an advantage in that they have better charge cycle life (roughly 25% on average) but they're also more sensitive to temperature than SLA, which in good ol' hot SoCal is quite often an issue.

      So currently, a PowerPack utilizes more space, costs ~7x more, AND it can't handle the amperage load the bank of SLAs can, plus there's the issue of thermal control.

      I wonder where the bean-counters and brains were on this one.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    5. Re:Not so fast... by MattskEE · · Score: 2

      PowerPack has built in charge controller and cooling, plus a warranty and guaranteed specifications. If you roll your own solution with bare batteries it might be cheaper but it will consume your time, talents, and you will be the one responsible for warrantying it.

  2. Re:Great by Vairon · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Irvine Company is a commercial company not the government. What Orange County taxes are you talking about?

  3. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycling-program

  4. Re:Great by drnb · · Score: 2

    You don't think they'll get huge tax gifts? If not, then more power to them.

    There are probably incentives from the local power company, also a private company not a government entity.

    If there are tax breaks they would be state based, not county based, and would be little different from taxpayers subsidizing every solar panel a homeowner puts on their roof, etc.

    "More power", yes. Because during peak hours where these batteries are going to be active is when buildings in Orange County have experience the occasional power outages. So reducing their draw during these hours is a benefit to the larger Orange County community.

  5. Re:Great by Myria · · Score: 2

    The Irvine Company is a commercial company not the government. What Orange County taxes are you talking about?

    Around here, The Irvine Company's power is such that it might as well be the government.

    --
    "Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
  6. Re:Great by dave562 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because during peak hours where these batteries are going to be active is when buildings in Orange County have experience the occasional power outages. So reducing their draw during these hours is a benefit to the larger Orange County community.

    You are spot on with this. As an employee of a company who is in an Irvine Company building that is going to get these batteries, I can attest to the power outages and mandatory rationing that we are subject to. They are not too invasive and so far have amounted to little more than no building A/C after 5pm. I had to contend with much worse rationing working at a non-profit in downtown LA who had heavily discounted power.

  7. Re:Great by JimSadler · · Score: 2

    It is really wicked that the wealthiest state in the nation can not provide quality, electrical services. One would think that California would have by far the best electrical supply in the nation. God bless Tesla! The Tesla organization is doing wonderful work.