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Tesla Deploys Over 300 Powerwalls To Give Hawaiian School Kids AC (electrek.co)
Fred Lambert reports via Electrek: As part of a state initiative, Tesla deployed over 300 Powerwalls in schools to cool down hot classrooms in Hawaii. Hawaii has a problem with hot temperatures in public classrooms that is affecting students negatively. The problem was so significant that the Hawaii State Department of Education had to intervene. They put together a $100 million fund, which has already helped cool down 1,190 classrooms to date, with contracts set for more than 1,300 classrooms, according to The Garden Island. In order to roll out the program without significantly increasing energy costs for public schools, they partnered with Tesla to pair Powerwalls with solar power to reduce the impact of running the air conditioners in classrooms across the state. It also resulted in an interesting learning opportunity about renewable energy and energy storage for students.
What the hell is wrong with Education Departments?
Hawaii has a problem with hot temperatures in public classrooms that is affecting students negatively.
For sure? Have studies been done? Is Hawaii hot? Wow, new info for me!
But seriously, this is the kind of stuff that will keep giving back to Tesla, they may be "giving away" a lot of stuff, but they are actually building the network that will be the foundation for the future and they are getting their foot in the door before GE or some other huge infrastructure company gets a foothold on the technology.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Yeah, it went down on my DAMN balls
These Powerwalls just don't add up as truly economic solutions if you're a regular customer buying at Tesla's asking price.
Same problem Tesla has with those solar roof shingles. The estimated cost to cover the average size roof on a home makes them totally non-competitive with regular panels.
I really hope I'll see this change in my lifetime, and even better if it's fairly quickly. But battery technology really hasn't evolved at that fast of a pace. Much of the gains we've seen in how long you can go before needing to recharge a laptop or a phone have more to do with CPUs and other components increasing their efficiency.
Plus, the whole battery making process is REALLY environmentally dirty. The more batteries we use, the more negative environmental impact that production creates -- and right now, companies like Tesla are really trying NOT to address that issue. (It's nice to promise all the "feel good" things about batteries being able to be recycled over and over whenever they wear out, but many, many NEW batteries need to be manufactured to meet the needs for battery powered automobiles and power capture for PV solar. We're FAR from a point where all the batteries we'd ever need already exist can can just be re-used on demand!)
thats thai pricing, roughtly. enough for a room.
1000 gets you an office space/bigroom luxus model.
basically those school systems pay off themselves in 30 years. I really have to think that tesla is starved for buyers for the powerwall. which is a stupid fucking name anyways. Tesla powerBANK would be a better one, since it would lead to less disappointment about what it actually is.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
sooo let me get this right, to save a few dollars on power, they spent a shitload on powerwalls that will never pay for themselves? or did Tesla give them a special deal so that they aren't economically unviable
They don't have maths classes in Hawaii. They only teach one math.
sorry forgot they don't teach English in the US.
They somehow magically generate power which somehow magically cools kids in classrooms. You know, instead of just installing AC and paying for the power because kids are suffering in the heat.
Tesla PR is spinning this hard.
Not since we threw them all out.
> ... School happens primarily during the day. Heat is primarily a problem when the sun is shining brightest ...
Since when has *pampering * become the perfect solution for anything?
Classrooms in Singapore are much hotter but they are producing much better students than those from Hawaii
Why would you care? Unless you've had a lot to say about fossil fuel subsidies totalling $5.3 trillion (more than 6% of the entire planet's GDP), you should probably just relax about a few bucks going to solar power, especially when it keeps getting cheaper and cheaper to install and use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
it is just sad to see such wastage. Nothing wrong with solar, though better solutions are probably geo thermal in that region. Solar with net feed to the grid would be far better, Powerwalls suck balls cost wise, they are purely waste, they only have benefit where connectivity to the grid is expensive or the grid is inherently unreliable.
TFA isn't clear, but a lot of the state doesn't really have a grid. It would be good to know how many of those walls will wind up in places like Kauai, where they still provide power to buildings by running diesel generators.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Panels on the roof and an A/C unit inside. Maybe with a relay to cut the A/C if the panels aren't producing enough.
That would work, the kids are only there daytime and the A/C is only needed badly when the sun is shining.
The batteries just seem an unnecessary expense in this case.
You must have dropped out in 8th grade. I had to take at least 6 of them.
How come a country as highly developed and as rich as the USA doesn't even have A/C in schools in what is possibly one of the hottest parts of the country?
And, as others pointed out, an electricity network that is not even able to provide the power for those A/C units?
At maybe 10 kW per classroom (with halfway decent isolation that should be more than enough to cool it down) that's a mere 25 MW of electricity - spread out over the network.
If you did, u would see that a lot more is going on than just adding AC.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We had a similiar situation in California, but caused by Pete Wilson during his time as Governor, but triggered during Gray Davis' term (he was either incompetent or a pushover, but the fault really did lie with the previous administration.)
The bigger problem is citizens tolerating this sort of collusion between the elected officials and the private sector to a degree where this is possible, followed by the ability for blame to be shifted between the parties as one bad law gets put in place under one administration, then only partially repealed under the next so they can continue playing 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' around issues that matter to better pad each other's own pockets. Because at the end of the day that is what American politics looks like, whether local, state, or federal level.
Trump recommended Hawaii install all the Powerwalls in a row to make an actual wall, to keep out the Mexicans.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That's correct folks, I'm heading to Hawaii!
It took Musk 300 PowerWalls to get me there, but that's just what I need to continue my trolling in the sun with a pina colada in my hands!
I went to high school in Hawaii, and I don't understand how this could work without rebuilding the high schools themselves. Most (if not all) the schools are open-air campuses; there's no indoors except the classrooms themselves. The classrooms have no significant insulation (why would they?), and generally feature jalousie windows. How they intend to keep the cold air in is a mystery to me. The other thing to consider here is that it's not just the heat that's the problem. The "heat" itself is generally just fine, it's not like Las Vegas or Phoenix out there. It's the humidity that gets you, and you get acclimated to that after a few months. I'm sure I'm missing something but when I hear A/C in Hawaii schools I immediately imagine all that cold air seeping out the jalousies and the A/C units constantly overworking. Sounds like a massive waste.
Kauai has a total population less than 70,000. how many classrooms can it possibly have?
You think it's the only Hawaiian island?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The majority of Hawaii's population is centred around the 3 main islands. Oahu accounts for over 70% of the population, Maui and Hawai'i account for another 20%. All the other islands combined don't total more than 100k residents.
and those other NON main islands come to around 20k of people. The rest are all centred on the 3 main islands which surprise surprise have grid.
For the past 60+ years they have been fine without AC. This is just another govt. spend exactly like Ohio did back in the 80s, more property tax and the students no longer needed to suffer like the rest of us had to. Actually, it wan't suffering, it was just a fact of life. More proof that humankind is becoming weaker by the day.