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Samoa Plans Switch To 100% Renewable Electricity -- Using Tesla's Batteries and Grid Controller (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fast Company:
In seven years, the island nation of Samoa plans to run on 100% renewable electricity. Over the last year, the local utility has worked with Tesla to install a key piece of that plan -- battery storage, and also a software system that can control Samoa's entire electricity supply. In the past, like many islands, the country ran mostly on imported, expensive, and polluting diesel power. As recently as 2012, the country brought in 95 million liters of diesel.
Spurred by the cost and the threat of climate change -- Samoa is at particular risk from sea level rise and new outbreaks of climate-related diseases -- the country has been ramping up the use of renewables, with five large solar plants, a wind farm, and hydropower plants. But as renewable energy grew, the grid struggled with reliability.
"It had gotten to the point where just the solar, combined, could provide over half of the entire peak demand for the island, but they were having quite a few challenges managing that efficiently," says JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technical officer.... Tesla installed two of its "Powerpack" battery systems, and also developed and implemented island grid controller software that can control both the batteries and all of the power plants. "If a big cloud comes over the island and the solar drops very quickly, we can control the battery to make up the difference so we don't have to start a generator immediately, and we don't have to keep a generator running even when it might not be needed," says Straubel.
"It had gotten to the point where just the solar, combined, could provide over half of the entire peak demand for the island, but they were having quite a few challenges managing that efficiently," says JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technical officer.... Tesla installed two of its "Powerpack" battery systems, and also developed and implemented island grid controller software that can control both the batteries and all of the power plants. "If a big cloud comes over the island and the solar drops very quickly, we can control the battery to make up the difference so we don't have to start a generator immediately, and we don't have to keep a generator running even when it might not be needed," says Straubel.
They are. The teardowns industry experts executed on their products indicate roughly 30% margin. Citation.
They are just using the Amazon model of spending on new products and services, investing their capital into growth vs returns. Thats a long-term return strategy and one I think wall street will have to get used to. There is a difference between companies like Sears who cost-cut and sell business units in order to try and remain solvent, and ones like Tesla who throw everything they have in order to deliver the next breakthrough product like the fastest accelerating car on earth, or the first really usable electric Semi-Truck, or win the race to Level5 autonomous driving. Amazon did the same thing when it invested in AWS, Prime Streaming, Alexa, and Kindle. Some of their investments didn't pan out, like Fire Phone and Tablet, but most do. They are smart guys. This is Tesla's approach. Solar Tiles, Battery packs for home, business, infrastructure, cars, suvs, trucks, sports cars, and the underlying platform (autonomous driving, supercharger network).