Tesla To Construct 'Virtual Solar Power Plant' Using 50,000 Homes (cleantechnica.com)

Long-time Slashdot readers denbesten, haruchai, and Kant all submitted this story. CleanTechnica reports: Tesla and the government of South Australia have announced a stunning new project that could change how electricity is generated not only in Australia but in every country in the world. They plan to install rooftop solar system on 50,000 homes in the next four years and link them them together with grid storage facilities to create the largest virtual solar power plant in history. And here's the kicker: The rooftop solar systems will be free. The cost of the project will be recouped over time by selling the electricity generated to those who consume it.

"We will use people's homes as a way to generate energy for the South Australian grid, with participating households benefiting with significant savings in their energy bills," says South Australia's premier Jay Weatherill. "More renewable energy means cheaper power for all South Australians..." Price predicts utility bills for participating households will be slashed by 30%.
Electrek reports that the project will result in at least 650 MWh of additional energy storage capacity, and Tesla points out that "At key moments, the virtual power plant could provide as much capacity as a large gas turbine or coal power plant."

Comments

Re:Great news!

[blindseer]

This should play well in markets with high electricity pricing like Australia, Hawaii, Germany & California.
And now that Tesla has opened the door, I expect to see other players in energy storage such as Sonnebatterie try to make similar deals.

Solar power is expensive and unreliable. Sure, batteries address the reliability problem but then add to the cost. Without the batteries then it's cheaper but then something has to fill in the gap during the night. This means burning oil or natural gas.

I'm sure we'll see competition in batteries being supplied but they all use the same materials and technology to create those batteries. They can only get so cheap. The cheapest batteries are the ones you don't have to buy.

Coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear don't need storage because the energy is already stored in the fuel. Solar and wind will need storage or it will have to become cheap enough that just dumping the energy is viable, and we are a long way off from that. People will make the claim that solar is already cheaper than coal and nuclear but that's only true if there is a way to put that energy to use as it is produced. If the sun shines and people don't need energy, or people need energy and there is no sun, then solar energy doesn't look so cheap.

You might expect new competition in energy storage but I do not. I expect energy prices to rise until there is a breaking point. People will be paying so much for energy that they will demand anything to bring prices down, even if that means breaking the ban on nuclear power.

Without nuclear power you can choose only two of these three, reliable, inexpensive, and carbon free. Nuclear power is reliable, inexpensive (at least compared to solar + batteries), carbon free, and also the safest energy source we have.

I agree that Tesla opened a door here. These batteries look great for managing the grid with solar. They'd also work great for managing the grid with nuclear. To make nuclear cheap means making it big. Big means it can't match the load as quickly as it changes. To match the load to the nuclear supply means batteries, but far fewer than if used with solar.

Re: Great news!

[blindseer]

Whatever. I'll listen to the people that ran the numbers.

https://blogs.scientificameric...

http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...

Where did you get your numbers from?