Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Runs an Entire Island on Solar Power (engadget.com)
Jon Fingas, writing for Engadget:Now that Tesla has officially acquired SolarCity, it's not wasting any time showing what the combined entity can do. Tesla has revealed that it's running the island of Ta'u (in American Samoa) on a solar energy microgrid that, at 1.4 megawatts, can cover "nearly 100 percent" of electrical needs. It's not just the 5,328 solar panels that are key -- it's the 60 Tesla Powerpacks that offer 6 megawatt-hours of energy storage. While Ta'u is normally very sunny, the packs can keep it running for three days without sunlight. They don't have to worry about a cloudy day leading to blackouts. The solar switch, which took a year to complete, has both its long-term environmental and immediate practical benefits. Like many remote communities, Ta'u previously had to run on diesel generators. That burns 300 gallons of fuel per day, which is neither eco-friendly nor cheap. Solar eliminates the pollution, of course, but it also saves the cost of having to continuously buy and ship barrels of diesel. And crucially, it provides a more reliable source of electricity.
As indicated, shipping fossil fuel has high costs, and operation is noisy. Sunlight works even on cloudy days, and you can run desalination plants using solar, and it withstands weather effects fairly well.
Many islands operate with a hybrid solar and wind system, especially in equatorial regions.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How much did 1.4MW and 60 battery units cost? What is the buyback period compared to burning 300 gallons of diesel per day?
The summary is I think a bit misleading in saying how expensive the fuel is, while not giving any figures for how much the solar panels plus battery cost... I would love to know how much diesel all of that money could buy...
That said there are a lot of fantastic benefits of being totally independent for energy and not having to rely on fuel shipments and being immune to price fluctuations, so you can't just look at the monetary cost and say it's not worth doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While the idea of a sunny Pacific island may seem like an easy and ideal place for solar power, this may not be the case.
When I worked for NOAA, I heard wild stories about how the molds in Samoa would destroy our scientific instruments. They would even eat glass... This should prove an interesting and challenging situation.
massive solar plants combined with massive desalination plants. Sadly it looks like it's just time for more tickle down economics. I'm really not looking forward to all the money that's about to get repatriated. There was an article on cnn with a whole mess of CEOs salivating over all the Mergers and Acquisitions they're gonna do. I wouldn't care if ever round of M&A didn't end in massive layoffs...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"We don't know who struck first, but we know it was us that scorched the skies..."
He has already backed off prosecuting Hillary, how many more statements will he back off of?
Now all he needs is a monocle.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
A couple of containers full of batteries every decade or so is a lot cheaper than shipping-in large quantities of fossil fuels.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is the perfect proof of concept that Musk is aligning all the pieces needed for Mars Base 1.
SolarCity for the energy collection
Tesla for the storage and local transportation
SpaceX for the "long haul" to/from Mars, as an umbrella for the expedition and for the environmental pieces (habitat design, space suits).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Since not all "entire islands" are created equal, I used Wikipedia so you do not have to.
"The land area of Tau Island is 44.31 square kilometers (17.11 sq mi) and it had a population of 873 persons as of the 2000 census.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Betting on the price of replacement batteries going down is probably as safe or a safer bet than betting on the price of fossil fuel to remain stable over an entire decade.
Someone had to do it.
That part of the world has very reliable trade winds. One wind turbine could generate several times as much power and would probably cost much less.
And don't forget that battery power (and solar cells) are getting better/cheaper all the time.
I don't know that diesel engines are getting more efficient. If they are, they're coming to the end of their efficiency curve while solar and batteries are just getting started.
Longer than the barrels of diesel fuel anyways.
All of which, added up, is no more than a small fraction of the environmental cost of pumping, transporting, refining, flying in and then burning all that diesel.
If there is an award for the comment that best embodies the slack-jawed, drooling idiocy of the neo-conservative right, surely it should be won by the one above.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
> Solar eliminates the pollution, of course
Except for the pollution from mining the rare earth metals, and the whole solar manufacturing process.
What "rare earth" metals would that be? Solar cells are silicon
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
You should be thanking Panasonic as Tesla are just their salesmen, even their GigaFactory is paid for with Panasonic cash.
basically SolarCity make stickers and have a bunch of contractors to fit them on the roof, maybe the contractors should just skip the "innovative" middle men and buy them direct, you know, cut out the inefficiencies and all that..
I guess you've been buying your cars from Magna Steyr or Karmann Mobil?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Islands are ideal places to test small energy sources, because islands as large as Hawai'i are 'off the grid' and are often run entirely on diesel.
A geothermal plant is on my itinerary in Iceland.
In remote areas where there is no existing grid infrastructure Solar is already cost competitive. Many parts of India which are off the grid are running on a mix of Solar and Biogas plants(basically farm waste and cow shit in a sealed tank with a pipe to draw out the methane). An Island where fuel needs to be shipped in is ideal for Solar and wind as it gets rid of the uncertainty of the fuel ship being delayed by a storm. However the locals need to be trained to fix the solar panels and batteries themselves (as in swap in replacements) and enough replacemnts need to be kept on the island otherwise you are swapping one set of dependencies for another.
Interestingly renewables may have a brighter future in areas which are fast industrializing like China and India than in already industrialized nations like USA. In the newly industrializing countries there are fewer sunk costs in an infratructure based on fossil fuels so there is less resistance to leapfrogging fossil fuels and going directly to renewables. Its like how India had mobile phones take off blindingly fast because the fixed line infrastructure was way underdeveloped while USA is still behind in mobile commerce or mobile payments (Apple Pay is 1990s technology from Japan but seems so futuristic int he US)
As India and China are both industrializing and need huge amounts of power they are not going to choose between clean coal, gas and renewables. They are going to develop everything at full speed and in certain areas solar is going to win based upon the local geography. This means their is a clear cut future for solar which is not dependent on subsidies making it cheaper than conventioanl power plants. China is already the world leader in Solar panels and India's Suzlon is one of the world leaders in Wind Turbines.
While Global Warming may or may not be a bad thing;( Russians and Canadians would definitely welcome a warmer world); the move to renewables still makes sense for a country like India which has little oil and imports most of it. In fact if not for Oil and Gold imports India has a positive balance of trade with the world.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Orkney, a group of islands of the north coast of the UK is apparently now self sufficient in electricity from wind turbines. Yes we still have a diesel fired power station in case of problems and an undersea link to the UK national grid.
This is the future - solar, wind, whatever, not filthy fossil power pushed by some bad tempered businessman with dodgy hair.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Cadmium, Indium, Tellurium
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Filthy Space marines wouldn't. They would have been brainwashed into beliving in "clean coal" or some other such nonsense.
Another evil genius builds a secret lair on an island under a volcano.
Have gnu, will travel.
The best solar cells are now 46% efficient. Call me when that's been tripled.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Even on cloudy days they produce SOME electricity. Not nearly as much as on sunny days, but some.
We're practically out of silicon. It's even more scarce than oxygen!
"Rare earth" means a specific set of chemical elements, not just whatever you think sounds exotic.
Specifically:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element
None of the elements you named are "rare earths." "Rare earths", also known as "lanthanides" (this is undoubtedly a better name for them anyway) are used mostly in high strength MAGNETS, not solar cells.
Jesus, is there anyone with a science education on this website anymore?
That's better than a diesel engine at 45%. And the fuel costs you nothing.
Also, you want a solar panel that's 138% efficient?
When you find any energy source that's 138% efficient, you'll be the wealthiest person in the world. Also, you'll have disproven physics.
It'd be a real shame if Ta'u can't keep up the payments to Solar City and their power controllers all stopped working at the same time.
As opposed to the regular diesel shipments, which would definitely continue to arrive whether any payments were made or not?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Good news is they're found together; just have to go through the trouble of separating them from all that sand
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Everything needs backups. Everything.
Ezekiel 23:20
The Red Herring Man strikes again!
Ezekiel 23:20
1) none of those are rare earth metals, and even if they were, 2) none of those are required for PV technology anyway.
Ezekiel 23:20
So the back up for solar is properly managed sewerage, as in a methane farm and you store that methane, compressed (using solar power), to power gas turbine generators when needed and produce hot water, for direct local use (care needs to be taken where the plant is to be located).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The best place to try this are Islands between the 55 parallel and the equator. Eg, Alaska, BC, Washington, Florida. But northern Islands will never have enough solar days to make it worthwhile. Northern Alaska is a fun exception. Alaska either gets "no sunrise" or "no sunset" days, so it might work for half the year, thus justifying the installation but the other half of the year it's business as usual.
What Tesla should do, is roll this out on Vancouver Island, because it's in just the perfect place, and large enough to justify the installation and it's an Island that isn't self-sufficient (eg an earthquake can knock the island off the power grid permanently)
So each Powerball is 100kWhs? When did Tesla start making city sized storage units?
That's the option I'm going with, financing them rather than leasing them.
Only I can judge you.
That's not really true; it's an N+M situation.
Ezekiel 23:20
Well, you know, cargo cult. Show up at the dock and ships are almost guaranteed to come.
If you look at energy consumption in states like California, the demand hits well over a quarter million gigawatt/hours. This demand is only going up, not down. Elon is doing what Elon does best - proving that it only works on a very small scale.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Only the quad junction gallium arsenide cells are that efficient, and only when solar concentrators are used. Those cells are only used on satellites because they cost over 100 times more than mono/poly crystalline silicon cells. Amorphous cells are very cheap, but do not approach the efficiency of silicon. Also, none of these technologies will last indefinitely. Photodegradation will eventually degrade or destroy any existing solar cell technology.