Slashdot Mirror
Elon Musk: I Can Fix South Australia Power Network in 100 Days Or It's Free (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Guardian: Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of electric car giant Tesla, has thrown down a challenge to the South Australian and federal governments, saying he can solve the state's energy woes within 100 days -- or he'll deliver the 100MW battery storage system for free. On Thursday, Lyndon Rive, Tesla's vice-president for energy products, told the AFR the company could install the 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage that would be required to prevent the power shortages that have been causing price spikes and blackouts in the state. Thanks to stepped-up production out of Tesla's new Gigafactory in Nevada, he said it could be achieved within 100 days. Mike Cannon-Brookes, the Australian co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Atlassian, on Friday tweeted Elon Musk, asking if Tesla was serious about being able to install the capacity. Musk replied that the company could do it in 100 days of the contract being signed, or else provide it free, adding: "That serious enough for you?"
If the batteries will be made in Nevada, and shipped to Australia, I'm curious to know how they plan to transport them. It seems to me the most logical way would be by boat but could they get there quickly enough? If these are lithium ion batteries would it be possible to ship them by air given all the shipping restrictions that are placed on lithium ion batteries currently? If they go by boat how would they be packed to minimize the chance of a catastrophe en route?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The first is always free
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
So one month to pack up the batteries and another 2 weeks to ship that's 44 days leaving 56 days for installation? It's not the materials, it's the manpower..
Namaste
Then they'll be back on Elon's doorstep in 5 - 10 years getting replacements because nobody else sells the batteries and they don't last forever...
Of course he'd make this bet. It's not about solving a problem, it's about creating a very expensive dependency on his company.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Given what seems like pretty steep logistical challenges, this is quite a bold claim. It'll be interesting watching this unfold...I for one am hoping the process is documented and presented either way.
He said after the contract was signed. Presumably all permits would have been worked out by that time.
Also, while he's waiting on the permits and contract to be signed he could be loading up all the needed equipment, getting his people ready, making arrangements for passage on ships and/or planes, and getting the logistics down. Before the ink is dry he'd already have the stuff moving so if, as others above had said, it takes 20 days to get to Australia by boat, that leaves him 80 days to do the work.
Ambitious? Certainly. Doable? Only one way to find out.
He said after the contract was signed. Presumably all permits would have been worked out by that time.
That comes down to how much risk is Musk willing to assume. Until the contract is actually signed he would be fronting 100% of the cost and taking on 100% of the liability if it fails.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You think Elon & crew aren't smart enough to put that into the contract as a clause?
Dude, it's only free if it doesn't solve the problem. These battery packs are *designed* to solve this kind of problem. Buy low, sell high - only with electricity.
He boasting on his ability to deliver the on the promise. The contract will certainly include clauses that remove liability of providing the system for free in the case of other actors that can influence it that are outside of his control including a nature induced issue during shipping, piracy, the shipment held up by Australian customs, and union strikes that remove the ability to actual move material. That's just a limited list of the things that will probably show up.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Drop bears are attracted to batteries. I can't see the battery storage solution surviving the first drop bear attack.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I don't see the gigafactory opening, solar roof tiles or SpaceX landings as "less action". But maybe that's just me.
In terms of it being doable, they built an 80 MWh installation in Los Angeles in 90 days, so building a 100 MWh installation in 100 days doesn't sound unreasonable.
Do the Slashdot editors not understand basic physics? Battery capacity is measured in MW-Hr -- a measurement of energy capacity --, not MW -- a measurement of power. The article gets it right.
Are you asking for a detailed contract from Elon Musk for a battery installation for an Australian government? Do you need medical attention?
I don't respond to AC's.
Whether this is a good offer or not depends on the price etc. It is just a sales pitch. Buy my stuff and I guarantee it will be delivered within 3 months... Nothing special here. If he is asking some ridiculous price or if his product is not suitable for the job it is just air being emitted.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I'm curious to know how they plan to transport them. It seems to me the most logical way would be by boat but could they get there quickly enough?
A container ship can cross the pacific in 2-4 weeks so that's not a big deal. Lead time would be a serious problem though for his 100 day boast. Presume it takes 20 days to transport the batteries and maybe another 30-40 to build them all (probably optimistic), they would be left with maybe a month to design, install and test the whole thing. Not saying it would be impossible but it would be a tight squeeze most likely unless he has already built the batteries and designed the system. He could probably get it up and running quickly but perhaps not at full capacity.
(source: http://www.energymatters.com.au/commercial-solar/battery-energy-storage/tesla-powerpack/)
The weight of a unit is 1622 kg for the battery and another 1200 kg for the inverter. If one inverter is needed per battery, the total weight will be about 4000 tons.
Boeing 747 400F max payload is around 123 tons
(source: https://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-747-400F/3),
so only about 33 flights will be necessary.
If they are scheduled one per day that is 33 days.
Doable.
> Presume it takes 20 days to transport the batteries and maybe another 30-40 to build them all (probably optimistic), they would be left with maybe a month to design, install and test the whole thing.
So you would build it and deliver it, THEN start designing it? A Scrum advocate I'm guessing.
Given that it took 1.125 days per MWh for Los Angeles, I would have given a quote of 112.5 days for the Australia installation. I bet they're be almost two weeks late and will have to give it for free.
#DeleteFacebook
As popular as Musk is, and he is no doubt doing cool things, I can't help but think that the SA Government should be looking locally for a possible solution before importing battery units from Nevada.
We have an Australian company that is bringing Grid Storage products to market using Flow Battery tech called RedFlow, and it seems to be better suited for grid based applications rather than a re-purposed automotive unit, particularly when it comes to risk of fires.
Of course, his battery factory can probably find something to do with all those extra battery-making materials laying around if this falls through.
There are likely certain aspects that can be scaled up in parallel such that installing a higher capacity takes more workers rather than more time.
I'm careful to about how I judge other's really boring hobbies... after all, I get jazzed about getting my clock 10 microseconds more accurate.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
100 MW hrs solds a similar amount of energy to 100 tons of TNT. I really hope they plan on distributing the energy storage across the country, and not just having a few giant plants.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The Ozzies will have to make do, as we already have the world's 2nd biggest ego and sense of importance as President.
The world's most powerful ego and sense of importance is, of course Kanye West, and he's usually on tour.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Australia would also be wise to have Musk install it and show that it works first, before handing over any cash.
Dedicated clock or are you just resyncing more often?
For what computers cost most are surprisingly bad at keeping time.
I'm still looking for a digital light timer that doesn't lose a few minutes every year.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The backup plan if he can't get the batteries up and running....
1. Buy the USS Nimitz
2. Back it into a large South Australian port
3. Hook it up to the grid
4. Profit!
"Just as there is nothing so unreal as reality TV, there is nothing as unsocial as social media." - Alistair Dabbs
Batteries don't generate power, so how would they help Australia's Power grid woes?
Is the idea to 'charge' the batteries from the electric grid during non-peak hours, and then discharge them back into the grid during peak hours? Basically that solution would not be 'adding' electricity to the grid, but would be helping smooth out the troughs and peaks of energy capacity, which i guess to a suburbanite they don't care as long as it keeps the lights on? Or does Australia have some massive solar plants that i don't know about? Solar plants that generate electricity during the day when energy is needed the least, so that the batteries can charge then and discharge during the peak hours?
Is there enough lithium on the planet for this kind of energy solution to be deployed across the world?
The just finished a similar project in Hawaii, just scale it up a bit. http://www.theverge.com/2017/3...
Considering Tessa just installed a similarly sized installation in LA, I think they're doing fine.
You mean apart from delivering 100k+ electric cars per year and launching rockets that can land vertically on floating platforms in the middle of the ocean, or how about the gigantic battery factory? Yeah, other than that the dude is a total snake oil salesman.
I find it interesting that lots of high-level business is now done through Twitter - both Trump and Musk are doing it, soon others will follow.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not to minimize the devastation on Hiroshima, but they're not putting this 1mi directly above a city, and the results won't be radioactive.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
In what way is the Australian company Atlassian a Silicon Valley startup?
Sure, it has an office in San Fran, but really .... (yes, yes, I know it listed on the NASDAQ)
Maybe, "Billionaire tech founder Mikey Cannon-Brookes" or whatever. No need to co-opt everything ;)
--Q
A 14kWh powerwall sells for $5500. For 100 MWH of battery, that's only 715 power walls, and a $4,000,000 order. Maybe not small potatoes, but not earth shattering either I think.
There was no power shortage in south Australia.
There was:
- A huge storm which took down several UHV power distribution towers.
- The Heywood interconnector was down so the state was short some 650MW of capacity.
- A massive upset from the infrastructure damage that tripped off the base load energy suppliers.
- The loss of baseload caused the Murrylink interconnector (HVDC) to loose sync and trip (another 220MW gone)
- A loss in all that wonderful green energy they have because without the baseload or the interconnect there was nothing left to synchronise wind, solar, storage, or anything else to the grid.
You want to fix South Australia? Fund the upgrades to the SA/VIC interconnects that have been requested for the past 10 years. Do some much needed maintenance on the distribution network. SA currently has some capacity left in its generation. In 2018 they are expected to have a 600MW shortage during peak periods leaving them 200MW spare on the interconnect capacity.
Throwing in a 100MW battery system won't do anything to prevent the next major blackout.
The Heywood interconnect was online but it did trip on overload when much of the wind capacity couldn't handle the upset caused by downed transmission lines.
GPS Disciplined NTP.
Some GPS modules have a PPS (Pulse per second) accurate to around 10 ns, though cheap ones are more like 20-200 ns. Interrupt latencies on the computer adds some inaccuracy.
But with a Raspberry Pi 3 and a $35 add on board, you can get a stratum 1 NTP server accurate to a couple microseconds.
https://www.ntpsec.org/white-p...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
He said after the contract was signed. Presumably all permits would have been worked out by that time.
Also, while he's waiting on the permits and contract to be signed he could be loading up all the needed equipment, getting his people ready, making arrangements for passage on ships and/or planes, and getting the logistics down. Before the ink is dry he'd already have the stuff moving so if, as others above had said, it takes 20 days to get to Australia by boat, that leaves him 80 days to do the work.
Ambitious? Certainly. Doable? Only one way to find out.
yeah then theres customs clearance! Good luck with that, Elon! Especially given that the Aussies will probably deliberately hold it up to get their free batteries.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Tesla announced mid September that they've been chosen to build a 80 MWh storage facility. They cut the ribbon in late January - 4 months. Now that was in California, not Australia, but we do have airplanes ...
https://electrek.co/2017/01/23...
The power problems in South Australia are due to the both the state and federal governments mothballing coal-fired power generation to satiate the Greens, so good luck getting anything out of them. A lot of SA's baseload power is imported from neighboring states and when the interconnects went offline last September due to storm damage the wind power network had nothing to synchronise to so dropped their power from the network as well. The coal-fired power station in Port Augusta, SA was shut down last year; the gas-fired power station in Torrens Island is running at half-power (AGL is blaming soaring gas prices, but they're a gas producer themselves, so the truth is they don't want to maintain the full facility) and the coal-fired power station in Hazelwood, Victoria will be shut down next month. It's only going to get worse. I don't see how adding a paltry 100MW of battery storage is going to help the matter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
South Australia has a lot of wind turbines which generate plenty of power when the wind is blowing but not much at other times.
Adding battery storage will make excess power from the wind turbines available at times when the wind isn't blowing so much.
Adding battery storage to the grid as the way to solve the problems (assuming it will in fact do what Musk claims it will do) is a much better option than building more gas generators (which then require gas to operate which makes gas more expensive and has flow-on effects) or worse, so-called "clean coal" power stations.
That said, I suspect our current prime minister (who has a love of all things coal) will probably come up with some FUD and BS about why batteries aren't a good idea or why they won't solve the problems and building clean coal stations is the only way to ensure grid stability into the future...