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The Economics Of Tesla's PowerWall Don’t Make Sense For Most Customers In North America
With the euphoria over Tesla's electric car fading fast, especially now that competitors are releasing both more exciting (and more expensive for the vain set) cars such as BMW's i8, Elon Musk has found himself in a pickle: how to distract attention from his epic cash burn...
... propping up an auto maker that suddenly appears far less of a growth story than a year ago, while preserving the upward trajectory of TSLA stock price?
The answer: the PowerWall pivot which is the latest attention-grabbing fad provided by Tesla in its constant attempt to define itself not so much as a company (it is a car company? is it a battery company? is it a taxpayer-funded hyperloop company?) but as a growth story.
And while on the shiny surface, Musk once again did a great spin job of presenting the PowerWall as the next big thing in energy conservation and self-sustainability, the gloss promptly fades when one looks at the math behind the shiny facade.
Luckily, Catalytic Engineering has done just that, and has presented its Top Ten facts about Tesla's $350/kWh battery. Its conclusion: the "economics don’t make sense for most customers in North America" and that "by itself, the Tesla PowerWall residential unit won’t disrupt the energy industry, as it’s looking like a niche product."
In other words, just like the electric Tesla car was spun (more so by overeager sellside analysts even than management) as a niche product which will be adopted by everyone in the US (and the world) but increasingly appears that not only will this fad fade away only to be replaced by the next such attention-grabbing gimmick, so the PowerWall is a product that while clearly appealing to some 40,000 early adopters "it’s yet not clear that it will expand much beyond that."
Which brings up an important point: is Elon Musk's genius not in his inventor and developer abilities but merely his marketing skills. But that is the topic of a different post.
For now, here are the Top Ten Facts about Tesla’s $350/kWh (DC) PowerWall battery courtesy of Catalytic Engineering, by Bruce Lin and Matthew Klippenstein
* * *
There’s an MBA joke about scaring your clients by asking them “What’s your China strategy?”.
Today, it’s “What’s your Tesla strategy?” $350/kWh (DC) retail really is that significant. In the few days since the Tesla energy storage announcement, we’ve had a half-dozen people ask what we think about it. As energy systems developers with experience in several different chemistries and system scales, we can make some well-grounded educated guesses on the design and economics.
Here are our top ten conclusions, with plenty of links to reference information.
1. The 92% efficiency figure is misleading
The “92% efficiency” figure quoted by Tesla isn’t as good as it sounds, but it doesn’t matter.
The PowerWall batteries themselves likely run at about 48VDC, and are boosted by an internal DC-DC converter up to 350V-450V. This is to match the DC input of typical inverters. The huge difference in voltages means a significant efficiency hit – one-way efficiencies are probably about 94% to 97%.
You have to add a AC-DC inverter (with 97% efficiency each direction), so your real-world AC-AC round trip efficiency drops to 87%. This is lower, but it doesn’t matter, because losing 13% of your low cost electricity is insignificant in the economics. Amortizing the capital cost of your system, by ensuring long lifetime for the batteries, is far more important.
2. The battery architecture is designed for long durations, which means low power.
It’s likely that the battery packs are two modules identical to (or very similar to) the Tesla Model S design, in order to achieve production synergies. Each module has 6 groups, and 74 cells in parallel per group. This makes a total of almost 900 cells, with an operating voltage of about 48 VDC which makes certain safety aspects easier to design. The two packs are one-eighth of a Tesla Model S 85 kWh.
92% efficiency can only be achieved by running the battery at extremely low current, to minimize resistance losses. (Our Catalytic battery model suggests this is as low as 0.6A per cell) For example, a normal Tesla car battery probably has a DC-DC round-trip efficiency of less than 80% because people charge quickly (one round of resistance losses), and output high power when driving (a second round of resistance losses).
The tradeoff is that they are putting in many, many cells to supply the 10 kWh – far more than would be necessary for the rated 2 kW of power, or even the peak 3.3 kW. (In a car, those two modules would be pushed to deliver about 30 kW of power) In other words, the PowerWall was designed for energy output, not power output.
By the way, this is the traditional argument of flow battery proponents – if you want to store lots of energy in regular batteries, you wind up being massively oversized for your desired power output; the faster you discharge electrons, the bigger your losses become, and the bigger energy your battery has to become, to deliver the same kWh to the outside world. In essence, you’re paying for a lot of power you can’t use. Alternately, if you did want to run high power, you would need more cells to supply the 5 hours of energy.
This isn’t a show-stopper – the achievement of $350/kWh (DC) is still significant. Customers will just need to be aware that they will need multiple units to serve high power.
3. Thermal regulation may be a hidden performance cost
Another benefit of operating at such low current densities is that there will hardly be any waste heat during charge and discharge (as a result of the lower resistive losses). However, ambient temperatures will be the major thermal issue – cooling during hot days to ensure long lifetime, and heating to prevent the cells from freezing in the winter. We can guarantee the parasitic efficiency of the thermal regulation system is not included in the quoted 92% DC-DC efficiency – electric heating to keep the cells from freezing will be a big efficiency hit for outdoor-mounted units in cold climates. This shouldn’t be an issue for Australian early-adopters, but it will be interesting to see what users in Germany (Tesla’s other early target market) report.
Along these lines, the flat design isn’t solely for aesthetics – it provides for more surface area for passive cooling, to keep the cells running cool and increasing their lifetime. Note that the raised “hump” in the design also discourages stacking of PowerWalls in front of each other.
The fact the system runs on liquid cooling isn’t particularly significant. The Model S pack already uses liquid cooling, so why not use the same technology?
4. Your batteries can last hundreds of cycles, if the system is designed right
How come 7 kWh is only $500 cheaper than 10 kWh? Most likely, they have the same two modules, and the 7 kWh unit is merely cycled more shallowly (70% of the depth-of-discharge of the 10 kWh unit). The 10 kWh unit is only rated for weekly cycling, which means far fewer cycles over its lifetime (about 500 rather than roughly 3,500). By comparison, the 100,000 mile warranty on the batteries in the 60 and 85 kWh Model S implies up to 1,700 deep-ish discharges, or a (much) higher number of (much) shallower discharge cycles.
It’s fine if the 7 kWh “daily cycle” system loses capacity over repeated cycles, since it effectively has 30% more margin than the 10 kWh unit. Also, the fact that each cycle is very mild inherently reduces the chance of the undesired, damaging side-reactions that gradually impair batteries’ capacity.
Interestingly, the 10 kWh high-energy system uses lithium nickel-cobalt-aluminum cells (the same chemistry used in the Model S), while the 7 kWh daily-cycle system uses lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt “NMC” cells (actually a more common chemistry, used in the Nissan Leaf and power tools).
Image credit: Theron Trowbridge, CC-BY-NC 2.0
5. Cutting the grid connection will cost two or three times more than you think
2 kW should cover the average 1.2 kW electricity usage of the average American house, but 3.3 kW peak power will not be enough if you have many devices in a large American house, all running at once, and you want to disconnect entirely from the grid.
In fact, a SolarCity VP admitted that a single PowerWall is not enough to disconnect entirely from the grid, as 7 kWh doesn’t really offer enough power to cover all non-daylight hours: “it would require multiple units to take someone off the grid.”
Elon Musk noted in the 2015Q1 earnings call that it does not make economic sense to go off-grid, with PowerWalls. It was claimed that it might be economically in Germany, where feed-in-tariffs are less expensive – if there’s enough demand from our readers, we’ll do an economic analysis of this case next.
6. The all-in price is twice the $350/kWh ‘wow’ number, but still impressive
The core cell cost that enables this $350/kWh cost is believable. Earlier this year Swedish researchers polled a number of battery electric vehicle manufacturers on their proprietary cost structures, and estimated that Nissan and Tesla are currently at $200-$300 per kWh for the battery pack. The PowerWall sale price is an excellent real-world confirmation that manufacturing prices really are in this range.
However, the $3,000 or $3,500 cost is for the DC system only – be careful to compare apples to apples when looking at other products. For example, the inverter will add around $1,000 to $2,000 to the cost of the device.
As another real-world point, SolarCity is quoting $7,140 to add the PowerWall to a solar installation (includes inverter, maintenance contract, installation, control system). This doesn’t sound unreasonable, and again $700/kWh for a small home-scale system is very cheap, though as mentioned above, multiple PowerWalls may be needed for many customers. SolarCity is doing well with this sort of deal – the price is for new solar installations only, where SolarCity would have to install an inverter, control system, and wiring anyway, so it’s cheap for them to kill two birds with one stone.
Musk was being slightly misleading in his 2015Q1 earnings call when he said the inverter is part of a solar installation and should not be counted in the cost. Either SolarCity’s $7,000 includes the inverter cost, or the inverter cost is assigned to the solar part of the install, and other factors are raising the cost to $7,000. Either way the true price is more like $700/kWh (AC installed)
7. The PowerWall does not let you make money on arbitrage, and Tesla knows it.
Tesla executives confirmed that the economics don’t work in America, and here’s why. As a residential owner, in the best case you’ll make 40 cents/kWh selling to the grid at peak hours, and buy at 10 cents/kWh at night. (Northern California utility PG&E’s Time Of Use residential rate sheet).
Once you include round-trip efficiency losses, that’s about $1.66 gross profit per 7 kWh (DC) cycle.
Note that PG&E gives you that 40 cents/kWh only during the summer (defined as May-October). For the other half of the year, the difference is negligible and uneconomic.
So revenue is $1.66 x 183 days x 10 years = $3,000. You’ll just about recoup the cost of the product, but you won’t profit because of two factors – the cost of inverter and installation, and the time value of money. We’re in a low-interest environment, but setting aside $7,000 today to make back $3,000 over 10 years still leaves you down $4,000 – not a very good deal.
Your utility will be happy that you help them smooth out peaks and troughs this way, but they won’t make it worth your while. In the longer run, enlightened utilities may offer you demand pricing if you promise to keep maximum power low, or pay you to absorb spikes in power. And it’s likely that SolarCity (or the other installers) will take a cut for interfacing with the utility on your behalf, to participate in these kinds of demand-side management activities. It’s still hard to see this win on raw economics for a typical homeowner.
8. The PowerWall is for three different groups – and maybe a fourth
The economics don’t make sense for most customers in North America, but some will find it worthwhile:
- – Customers who highly value staying powered during blackouts, and specifically want a battery. A generator would be cheaper, but the battery will be quieter, quicker to start, and avoid fuel storage.
– Customers who want to get off the grid entirely, in low-power applications at remote locations where a grid hookup (or upgrade) is prohibitively expensive, or with very expensive power
– Early adopters who enjoy being able to show off the sleekly-designed PowerWall to their friends. It worked for the Tesla Roadster.
We’ll do a more detailed analysis of levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and the German use case in a later article.
What this means is that, by itself, the Tesla PowerWall residential unit won’t disrupt the energy industry, as it’s looking like a niche product. The 40,000 early adopters that have reserved a PowerWall add up to 0.4 GW (a fraction of a single fossil power plant, or a very large solar installation, or 4,500 Model S cars). It’s yet not clear that it will expand much beyond that.
Still, it’s cheap, and it’s available (soon). These are huge factors in the energy business, and could lead to further scale.
9. The strategic impact is mainly on competitors, and Tesla’s supply side
The $350/kWh (DC) number is impressive, and Tesla did a good job of shocking industry watchers by quoting the DC-only, no-installation cost. Even the full price of $700/kWh (AC) is very cheap for a small-scale residential product, and research labs and energy storage competitors are going to have to explain their own path to beating that number.
We don’t have much information about the large-scale utility systems yet. We would expect them to be cheaper than $700/kWh all-in, and this already may be enough to gain significant traction. The highly modular approach with small building blocks (100 kW) is interesting – this could be a Google server type approach where a system is built of many cheap, replaceable parts. If there’s enough interest we’ll write more on this later.
Commercial customers can benefit from avoiding demand charges – if they commit to never exceeding a certain maximum power, this can gain them significant savings from their utility suppliers. This will be particularly true for commercial customers with large solar arrays in jurisdictions where feed-in tariffs are lower than utility rates – if they produce surplus electricity, it could be far more lucrative for them to charge their batteries, to minimize their grid draw when utility rates are highest.
On the Tesla side, there may be a supply chain play here. Every time Tesla doesn’t meet purchase agreements or sells fewer cars than projected, it can use these PowerWalls to soak up supply. Used battery packs may be a future part of the equation as well. Used packs are difficult to maintain and recycle, since they represent a safety risk, so rebuilding them into 7 kWh PowerWalls (running at extremely low current to extend their life) may allow Tesla to hit ever lower price points going forward.
Conclusion
There are a lot of details that Tesla would like to paper over in their $350/kWh (DC) announcement – so we hope that you find this analysis useful and perhaps a bit more in-depth than the first wave of articles published elsewhere. Still, Tesla’s PowerWall release is a ground-breaking announcement and a challenge to the rest of the industry, and we look forward to what comes next.
P.S. For our attentive readers who were keeping track, here’s number 10: The presentation started almost an hour late, and the electrical power for the event was run entirely on the batteries. Not to say that they’re linked, but a good reminder that it’s still early days for this technology and product, especially as Tesla has job postings for dozens of engineers to work on the second (non-prototype) generation of the PowerWall.
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cos economics > everything else. Economics is a conceptual cancer upon living organisms, get over it.
Economics is the scientific study of how money works. It is inhereint in us all, most people just don't notice it as economics, and label it common sense.
Sorry if common sense is a bit too hard for you to grasp.
Economics is only science if it starts by accepting the laws of thermodynamics.
The crap pushed today is closer to cargo cult-ism.
Yes.
I don't fault the "notion" of economics, as it's really about trying to identify and manage scarcity. In nature this is done primarily through fang and claw. As you note, we don't really seem able to grasp thermodynamics very well; it ain't likely to come by way of Tesla-like shit, nor will it come by way of fang and claw... Ah, the joys of human hubris!
Call it iBattery and every fucker will buy it.
Oh by the way does the new battery pack come with fire suppresion kit?
Put a strap and a dial on it and it's just another iwatch. Shiny distraction meant to sooth the investment banker crowd that everything is still. . . . lovely... Shiittttt
Forget the economic costs. The environmental costs are disgusting.
Every single one of Tesla's batteries has an environmental cost on par with a small radiation leak, but longer lasting and more carcinogenic.
Sure they build them in China, who cares? Well, there's 1 billion Chinese citizens who in the very near future are going to be sick to death (quite literally) of horrifying mutations in their children and an ever shortening lifespan. And those billion or so people are going to start looking at our clean, healthy countries and start wondering why it is they have to die to make our lives easier.
Like everything the eco-scam touches, this is another example of killing the world to make money disguised as being "environmentally friendly".
They will build most of them in Nevada, once Musk's gigafactory goes on line.
I doubt Musk cares whether ANY residential customers buy batteries--that's just the media hook--the main customers will be Wall Mart, Costco, Best Buy and other big box stores, which Solar City, another Musk company, has already been supplying with solar panels.
Assembly is hardly the cause of the environmental damage. There is a massive difference between being assembled in Nevada and the mining, processing and chemical treatment of the materials involved.
Wonder if the list price contains a performance bond to get rid of the damned thing once you don't want it anymore.
(or file off the serial nos. and dump it in the neighbors yard?)
Wow.
Yer frem west verginnie ain't yeah?
You've got style, Brother from another mother.
So the new Tesla device is like hanging a mini-Fukishima (Fuku for short) in your garage? I want one!
If this were such a breakthrough to revolutionize the energy industry, the status quo big energy folk would never have allowed it and Musk and Co would have been run out of town as happened to Nikola Tesla and others after him.
Tucker Motors is the classic example of that very fact.
http://listverse.com/2013/01/12/10-innovative-pieces-of-technology-that-...
How much of this will this have to be government(taxpayer) subsidized? :P
Like the car wouldn't be here without gov subsidies, which is part of the bizznes plan. I have my gas powered units . One large one small and a deep cycle battery with solar panel, inverter. Served us well 9 days in the ice storm 09 . All three cost me about 500 bucks
Just buy whoever has a Yeildco structure to dump bundled assets onto retail equity investors.
Tesla is an exmple of plenty Investor's money sinkholes
Elon Musk's genius not in his inventor and developer abilities but merely his marketing skills.
This is true. When my relatives come to earth much like the followers of Leif Ericsson did to North America but long after humans are fossils, they will fire up the mac hard drives in the vaults of the Pentagon and realize here was a species that had the ability to sell their ideas to others; others that had too much power, too much wealth and an inability to know what they were buying. They became so good at selling dangerous weapons and dangerous ideas to others that lacked sophisticated analysis tools to determine the true value of what they were buying with free money that they blew themselves up--their banksters were deadly irresponsible..
Blew themselves up with -WHAT-, precisely?
Its all pinball parts.
And good marketing.
C
Green coal is fools gold. Tesla is a cash burn business to appear profitable.
Interesting. What would you say is the economics of let's say cocktail umbrellas?
http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/cocktail-umbrellas.html
They at least keep the ice cubes in my drink in the shade.
Snake oil Disclaimer:
Elon Musk is to technology as Obama is to politics...
Perhaps one of these chargers would make more economic sense?
http://www.thetruthdenied.com/news/2014/03/12/radiant-a-suppressed-fast-battery-charger/
Also, what with the euphoria over Tesla's electric car fading fast, how can Elon Musk distract attention from his epic cash burn... ???
Put one or two of these in his trunk:
http://intalek.com/AuroraTekInfo/PUP3000UC_SpecSheet.pdf
... so you will never have to plug in your Tesla again, ever.
Thanks for posting. This John Bedini guy looks like the real deal. His audio stuff is really cool too.
Elon Musk is the least attractive fragrance.
There is no such thing as "renewable" energy. This product was made to fleece the stupid as it was "designed" to solve a fake problem.
Stupid people like you who don't know jack shit about Solar power.
Attend Solyndra solar class 101.
Trees.
It takes at least 40 years for a return on Investment .
So that's out.
Let's be clear here, "solar" is not only about "tech" solutions.
I know a fair amount about/of "solar," I know that PASSIVE solar IS worthwhile: if not for it we wouldn't be alive. We need to watch abusing terms such as "solar" so to not toss out the baby with the bathwater.
How does energy get renewed if you cannot create it or destroy it?
The only REAL description is that of "re-harnessing."
Back when everyone thought that switch grass was going to save us I pointed out the logistical nightmare with corraling up all that biomass. People repeatedly fail to understand the basic things (which are grounded in true fundamental physics [not "marketing physics"[).
If you skip past the basic premise just about anything can be made to look acceptable. And on a short enough timeframe anything can be seen as being successful: but for some things you better not blink...
According to SolarCity, a customer pays no upfront costs for a system, but then gets dinged for 15 cents per kwh of power generated. In the contract, SolarCity has the ability to increase that rate 2.9% a year, which doesn’t seem like much, but would end up raising your cost per kwh above 20 cents by the end of the 20 year term. So adding together your 15 cents per kwh for solar power plus the 15 cents to cycle a kwh in and out of the battery, and you’re looking at 30 cents per kwh for electricity.
I think 30 cents per kwh is bonkers. At my home in Texas I pay 10 cents per kwh to Reliant Energy for electricity that is mostly generated by natural gas burning power plants. Nationwide , the average retail electricity price is 12.5 cents per kWh, according to the Dept. of Energy. Now I understand that power prices are considerably higher in California and Hawaii and other parts of the world with shoddy power grids, but in the vast majority of the United States no one pays anything close to 30 cents per kWh for electricity.
But it gets worse. Let’s think some more about the real utility of this Powerwall system. According to the Dept. of Energy, the average home uses 10,900 kWh per year, which equates to about 900 kWh per month or an average round-the-clock power demand of 1,200 watts. Now with some attention to efficiency, the average home could probably get itself down to 1,000 watts of power demand on average, which would probably be low enough that Tesla’s 10 kwh Powerwall battery could handle the loads for about half the day.
A contract? That alone should make you realize that a far better choice for the world is to stick Musk on a one way trip to Mars on one of his Space-X rockets...
Is that math correct, that after 20 years at 2.9% $.15 is $.20? 70/2.9 =~ a doubling time of about 24 years. In 24 years that $.15 would be $.30 itself. I'm thinking, therefore, that after 20 years it's going to be more than $.20.
Will it start on fire if someone bumps it?
You sound like you are about 5 years behind in tech savvy.
You sound like you are about 5 years behind in tech savvy.
Coming from a person whom just double posted the same message, you are in no position to talk.
Nice.
Fricken vow.
Cannot say anymore that you had a good retort to a comment.
Who knows, but for sure this will be an issue that the insurance industry won't be looking the other way on. At some point when dumb-humans and lots of power mix there's going to be fire. Makes me feel better about living a fair distance from others (so I don't "interfere" with their right to practice stupidity).
I like diesel. It might smell, but it's pretty damn safe relative to other energy sources: go ahead, google "<energy source> explosion"
I want an iBattery from apple.
Funny how everyone is bashing solar but just watch a few You Tube videos of people that run their whole home off solar already.
The battery tech is growing by leaps and bounds.
However, Americans always talk about ROI so they seldom modernize .
This documentary is already 3 years old and lots of changes have happened since then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-grdspEWQ
"Funny how everyone is bashing solar but just watch a few You Tube videos of people that run their whole home off solar already."
I don't bash "solar" because when I speak of "solar" it's in the context of the only TRULY sustainable form- PASSIVE SOLAR. I wish you tech-heads would understand that you didn't "invent" "solar" (as tired of a dig that it is I'll refer to it anyway- it's like Al Gore claiming to have invented the Internet).
TECHNOLOGY IS A PROCESS. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. All tech is doing is coalescing (or in some cases, blowing up) shit. ALL can only occur using existing ENERGY and MATERIALS. Claim all you want that you can "create" endless energy, but at some point it all gives way, by way of simple math, to the FACT that materials are limited because we're on a finite planet. Our economic system, and the "tech" model that is readily tied to it, demands that there be growth. Something is going to give here and I'm pretty certain that "tech" won't scale for an infinite number of people on a finite planet; and then what? Will we then be peddling the tripe that "everyone" will be able to rocket off a trashed planet, free?
The good news is that whenever something game changing actually does get invented, ZeroHedge will run an article on far from perfect that technology is, how overhyped and misguided the company's business strategy is, and how its investors are all clowns who suck d1ck for a living.
Whenever we have a political movement that can do something, ZeroHedge will be running articles on how they too are zionist shills.
Whenever we get any form of debt forgiveness, ZeroHedge will run an article on how parasitic scum has got off scot-free from its god-given societal obligations.
Whenever we have reforms to provide a better social safety net, ZeroHedge will run an article about how its all a massive corrupt ponzi scheme that can never help anybody.
So where is the hope in this? If somebody inhabits this viewpoint, do they just patiently await Death? Or maybe they await SHTF, which is itself a kind of symbol or avatar for Death? Are you the lone cowboy in a world of otherwise clueless morons who have no hope of ever pulling it together? And if the viewpoint is that poisoned, it makes me wonder if I can even take the financial data seriously, because as well researched and layed out as it appears to be, I am reading in between the lines of these article's viewpoints and finding the mother of all anti-societal biases here...
Gotta be careful, Truth seekers, because even Fight Club, while more interesting than Grandma Druther's 'The Great Society Marches On' stories, is a hypermasculine fantasy day-dream whose worldview is susceptible to getting its ass-kicked by ever-so-fickle-and-elusive Reality and/or Truth, which Nietzsche said was much like a woman: elusive, mysterious, and needing to be patiently, persistently, lovingly and subtly courted.
You forgot about the PM (Gold/Silver) posts. I like those too!!!!
I tell ya, Dr Corey is still alive!
"7 kWh doesn’t really offer enough power to cover all non-daylight hours"
What about combining the bigger tesla with this new wind generator?
The Liam F1 Urban Wind Turbine is said to be considerably more efficient than most conventional turbines
Along with its claim of being able to achieve 80 percent of Betz' limit, The Archimedes adds that "The Liam F1 generates an average of 1,500 kilowatt-hours of energy [per year] at a wind-speed of 5 m/s [16.4 ft/s], which resembles half of the power consumption of a common household." Needless to say, it will be interesting to see what independent testing reveals. The company states that it has tested the Liam "over 50 times" to confirm the figures, and has already sold 7,000 of the turbines in 14 countries.
That said, the Liam F1 Urban Wind Turbine should be officially available as of July 1st. Although no price was given in today's announcement, a previous posting on the company website puts it at €3,999 (about US$5,450).
http://www.gizmag.com/the-archimedes-liam-f1-urban-wind-turbine/32263/
http://dearchimedes.com/
Oother factors to consider is that the Telsa and the Archimedes are first gen so to speak, and also production "scale" economics.
My whole home with all LED lighting and 3 PC's running 24/7 and 52 inch HDTV and washer, dryiner, dishwasher. etc etc. doesn't take more than 4kwh. i
Say, how much embodied energy do you have in all of that?
Did you run around buying CFLs when they came out? I wonder what hidden surprise LEDs will have in store for us?
Cute toy. If you live where the wind blows 20mph 24x7x365 this might power your refrigerator.
Yeah, I'd long-ago ruled out seeking to live anywhere where the wind would have to blow enough to run a wind turbine. I believe, however, that the requirement is a 12mph average: that's what it was back some years ago when I was studying all this electrical generation crap. 12mph doesn't sound like much until you're having to walk head-on in to it, as well as constantly battening down the hatches (spent some time out in the desert with blowing sand- sucked! people that can deal with that are pretty hardened).
So here's an interesting anecdote. An associate was contacted by two companies; a subcontractor for SpaceX and a constructor for a power plant regarding an inspection position.
The position for Space-X was for structural and aerospace weldments. NAS 410, MIL SPEC and prorietary (I imagine) standards.
The pay was subtantially less, did not guarantee a minimum number of hours per week, offered shoddy per diem rates far below national standard and would not delineate any further details or submit a formal offer. Now remember, GOOGLE is an investor in SpaceX, I doubt they are cash poor.
The position for the fossil power plant outage was for inspection of structural and tubular steel under ASME BPVC, B31.1 and D 1.1 etc.
The pay was subtantially greater, guaranteed and dilineated expected hours per week, higher per diem (>$115/day), mob in demob pay, expected project length, dates of future projects etc . . .
Who wants a ticket for the next shuttle flight, electric car or off-grid living concept inspected by cheap labor?
WE GET WHAT WE PAY FOR and sometimes rushing a concept delivers poor product performance. Especially when we count on quarterly performance and that ever debilitating human SHORT TERM gratification.
HERE's an idea, deliver the turbine technology that has been supressed and increase efficiency standards on the old infrastructure.
What, no options?
One of the best ways to hoodwink intelligent people to work for peanuts is Stock Options
That's a lot of codes to memorize regarding structural strengths of heads, shells, ligaments...
Corrosion factors for the piping, manufacturing tolerances, compensation for added openings...
Real world numbers, rather than just pencil whipping a checklist for some wealthy assholes.
So, you're telling us that the wealthy folks are taking it for the team, that they're taking on these risks so that we can finally realize actual quality services?
It is and always has been about SCALE. You just cannot generate meaningful revenues (based on the needs for capitalistic structures) with small scale.
I beg to differ on the notion that venture capitalists won't shell out big bucks if something is solid.
Sometimes it's about about something just not being marketable (scalable) and not about some conspiracy. I GET it that entrenched entities fight new-comers, but to suggest that Google is on some new-comer level I'm not buying it: Google can fucking alter our perception (plenty of documentation demonstrating that very thing).
People are broke. Credit is being squeezed. Existing infrastructure is crumbling, which therefore starts placing pressures on "available" capital. The human race is aging. And, the natural, physical world is struggling under our loads/demands for resources. The trend does NOT favor a lot of speculative shit. Could it end up being our downfall? Maybe, but based on human history I'm pretty certain that we're not going to achieve any "solution" for "all of humanity's ills."
Is this a repackaging of their car battery? Serious question.
Musk's Powerwall is just a blatant copy of a Panasonic produict.
No really!
http://learnbonds.com/tesla-motors-inc-powerwall-is-a-panasonic-powersta...
To give and idea of battery tech getting better and better. I have 3 electric scooters that came with SLA batteries (3-12volt wired in series=36Volt) Weight? about 15 KG. Time to recharge after a 50 km jaunt? about 8 hours.
Then I bought 3 - 12 volt LiPo4 batteries that charge in less than and hour and together weigh less than 2 kg.
And if you keep up with tech about graphene and newer battery tech its getting better and better.
What happened to all the old shit?
Meanwhile:
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/faces-of-poverty/
My wife grew up there. Sawdust was the energy used to cook by/with. That was a long time ago. And technology looks to have worked just wonderfully, right? Just keep on promising folks like this that if they continue to allow their lands to be torn apart in search of materials for your precious scooters that one day they too might be able to see some rich fucker there riding one of them!
No, I really DO hate stupid pricks like you!
Google is your friend (unless you are lazy).
Google is your friend if you're crazy.
My friends don't keep lifetime files on my behavior, watch my house from outer space, or sell the data to anybody who has the green and the urge to see it.
1. A lithium ion battery is a lithium battery. Whether a specific lithium ion battery is made by Duracell or Rayovac (or in this case Panasonic - see above) is more significant than whether the shape and size of the battery is AA or D cup.
2. The next critical factor in performance is software optimization of the charge controller and inverter. Give the Asian code-monkeys a weekend and a few cases of beer or the European code monkeys a week and few kegs of real beer, either way- you will have design suitable for prototyping.
3. The least critical factor (before engineering considerations) is the plastic prophylactic and type font "hiding the beef" - but the time and cost to the girls in Marketing is priceless.
So without even knowing the answer to #2 - Yes. (The same also applies to boob jobs, just swap surgeons for code monkeys.)
You can build your own solar system with hi quality components a lot cheaper than buying some Tesla crap.
Not much different than slapping together an hi end computer for half of what you would pay for a store bought one.
Lots of things to mention here. The author is correct in stating that the battery isn't a "revolution"...yet. I live off the grid and will be thrilled to replace my 800 lbs. of lead acid batteries for a Powerwall but there aren't many like me. My average daily electrical usage is 2 kwh, and I pay about $2/kwh for the privilege! But I don't have any alternative. For those people who want a "backup" system, well a propane fired genset is probably the way to go, but if you add a battery to this system you don't have to run the generator continuously, just to charge the battery...a much more efficient use of the genset.
However...consider another market...all those golf carts and small EVs (our local resort runs a fleet). The Powerwall could replace the lead acid batteries in these and provide the advantages of cycle life and range. People will find many uses for 7-10kwh of stored energy. Small boats, RVs...Remember Elon is building a $5.5 billion factory to make batteries...not cars. The Tesla car factory (5.5 million sq. ft.) he got for the bargain price of $50 million!
Do study of Graphene and latest battery tech. amazing strides
I'll take the 800lbs of lead/acids thank you. Easy to service. Cheap to replace. Common tech with a proven track record.
200-300 life cycles compared to 2000 cyles on LiPO4 or LiMG? And charging time much faster.
http://www.ia470.com/primer/electric.htm
True, you know what you are getting. But they aren't cheap. I have 8 300amp hour 6 volt VRLA batteries. They cost nearly $300 apiece and are good for perhaps 2000 cycles to 50% DOD. If the specs on the Powerwall are correct I would get approximately twice as many cycles at up to 100% DOD from lithium ion batteries. This isn't a theoretical argument for me, it is how my house works! The cost/kwh stored is LESS for the Powerwall. I am going to be a LOT happier muscling a 220 lb. battery out of here every 10 years instead of 720 lbs. every five. The cost of solar panels has dropped from about $6/watt when I bought my first panels to around $1.50/watt today.
There are many arguments to be made regarding these emerging technologies. I'm taken aback at the venom, though. We ARE talking about energy, not somebody's mother.
True, you know what you are getting. But they aren't cheap. I have 8 300amp hour 6 volt VRLA batteries. They cost nearly $300 apiece and are good for perhaps 2000 cycles to 50% DOD. If the specs on the Powerwall are correct I would get approximately twice as many cycles at up to 100% DOD from lithium ion batteries. This isn't a theoretical argument for me, it is how my house works! The cost/kwh stored is LESS for the Powerwall. I am going to be a LOT happier muscling a 220 lb. battery out of here every 10 years instead of 720 lbs. every five. The cost of solar panels has dropped from about $6/watt when I bought my first panels to around $1.50/watt today.
There are many arguments to be made regarding these emerging technologies. I'm taken aback at the venom, though. We ARE talking about energy, not somebody's mother.
Geez, I think that I'm about 1.5kWh/day and I don't even have any battery system.
"However...consider another market...all those golf carts and small EVs (our local resort runs a fleet). The Powerwall could replace the lead acid batteries in these and provide the advantages of cycle life and range. People will find many uses for 7-10kwh of stored energy. Small boats, RVs...Remember Elon is building a $5.5 billion factory to make batteries...not cars. The Tesla car factory (5.5 million sq. ft.) he got for the bargain price of $50 million!"
That's a market that's in decline (as disposable incomes continue to drop). Yeah, there can be some market penetration, but... I spent a fair amount of time trying to come up with a 4x4 electric vehicle and ultimately just went "fuck it." WAY too many problems, battery shit was WAY too expensive to justify the costs. Mind you, I'm someone that actually isn't in debt AND has money. I figure that I'm a pretty good gauge on how the majority of those that actually have any money, and are not in the really wealthy money-is-no-object category see all of this. There's not enough market out there not because people couldn't benefit, but because there's becoming less and less people with any money (perhaps because we're being forced to run around subsidizing so much stuff?).
this tesla battery factory is going to go down as a major boondogle.
lead acid could not electrify the world , it's not power dense enough.
lithium ion CANNOT ELECTRIFY THE WORLD it's not power dense enough.
this guy got everyone to buy into the dream of BUILD IT BIGGER.
well, they built saturn rockets in the 50's to go to the moon, and it turns out they are amazing rockets and all but too expensive and too massive for the practically profiteable job of launching sattelites to low earth orbit given that rocket technology has not advanced since the 50's in any meaningful way. building it bigger is not the way to go yet with rockets until a new technological model is created for producing thrust.
buiding a bigger battery factory will do nothing to change the basic power density of lithium ion batteries.
that said-----the factory may be able to manufacture new innovative cathodes and annoes into the lihium batteries which may change the basic physical economics of the per watt storage per kg/liter of the battery.
realistically we are still waiting on technologies that are at least twice as power dense and FAR LONGER LIVED that current chemistries.
many people are technophic and discouraged by the realitiy that lithium chemistries are over 30 years old and we've had so much time to advance and not really achieved a breakthrough.
personally i see some major breakthroughs in battery chemistry coming down the next 20 years as atomic imaging tools have become FAR more powerful in the last 3 years alone. we now , for the first time ever, have the means to watch a battery in the middle of its charging and discharging at the atomic level to understand every aspect of the physics and engineering process.
already great strides are being made in the fundamnetal understanding at the nano scale. many prototypes have been built.
right now, and for the next decade or so, we are still going to be building batteries at the macro level with micro scale qualty control.
in the future will be building batteries at the microscale level if not NANO scale level with vast improvements over current batteries.
it's encouraging to me that so much effort is being put into massive likely failures now because no industry progresses without massive failures over the span of decades.
how many failures were there in convneitonal internal combustion engine?
the long term progression of an industrial technology is a series of dart boards over time . the new money being poured into battreies will also feedback into software , and R&D for the batteries.
and mind you ----the future is most definitely ENERGY STORAGE with electrolytic power generators---(fuel cells) .
the same tools being used to study batteries are being used to study the atomic scale behavior of fuel cell membranes. and progress will be made.
ultimately, solid state machines with parts that vibrate or move or swell less than micrometers will ALWAYS be superior in the long scale to fuel combustion with pistons or turbines.
that is a fact. the other fact that is very very inconvenient for tesla and fuel cell kool aid drinkers is that internal combustion is EXTREMELY economical and efficient as it currently stands and current technological progress in combustion is still profiteably increasing the efficiency of modern engines by yolking out 1% here and 2% there better performance. so the ICE is not going anywhere really for the next 20 years.
we are still living in the age of the ICE and i dont' forsee that industrial era being surpassed in the future history books of technolical industrial history for at least another 40 years globally, possibly more.
but rest assured. electricity is the future. and fuel cell generation , solar , wind, and solid state , and better turbines, are going to eventually lay to rest mobile piston combustion , if not in 40 years, in 100 or 200.
so long as ww3 doesn't wipe out industrial progression, we are going in that direction.
Yes TESLA will suck in a lot of investors
You seem to be quite knowledgeable, check this out - over 60% efficiency:
http://www.gizmag.com/ge-harriet-gas-turbine-test/36176/
Here is some really old technology, and it used a renewable resource without the pollutants. Claims over 80% efficiency
http://www.lamppakuuma.com/
Old bootlegger technology. Damn hillbillies.
Agree that it is not cost effective at all for regular use.
There are several battery inovations that are probably going to make it to market, that would be cheaper better storage mediums.
When solar and other renewables really take off, I think there needs to be a big change in the design of appliances. Most electronics run on DC. Even big TV's and PC's. Manufacturers need to start offering an easy bypass of the AC to DC convertors and transformers in their products, that waste energy. Most can be bypassed now, by a technician. Then a 24 Volt DC system can be used without an invertor, which wastes energy. Eventually most products should be direct DC powered.
The best way to make these things happen is through building codes. A well designed house is ready to use less energy. Get a bigger chunk of that up front cost put into the mortgage at time of sale. Spread out over a long payback period. You can raise energy costs or use tax money to increase the capacity of the energy grid. Ultimately everyone has to pay for it. Meanwhile energy efficiency gains creep along slowly and in a patchwork way. The individual trying to move ahead faster, has to pay a big premium to do it.
I hope you never are in a position of power over anyone else.
Wasn't there a big argument about DC vs AC when electrical generation came about ?
We have all 230 volt AC here in Europe with underground cables. Even in the worst of storms I have never suffered an interruption.
You are right just convert or buy DC appliances., Much more efficient.
To the naysayers of solar. Just take some time and do some YouTube searches of ''Home solar systems'' and learn the facts , You can build yourself for HALF of what someone like Tesla will charge you.
There is a guy in the UK that has a grid tie system. His electric bill is about 100 quid a month but every 3 months he gets a 1200 quid check from the power company for the amount he pumped back into the grid. so he is MAKING money.
The beauty of solar power is in the eye of the beholder.
When looked at on a national scale, it is absurdly stupid.
When looked at through the eyes of a homeowner, it can make perfect sense, depending on the following variables:
1) the local cost of grid electricity
2) the value you put on off-grid capability
3) the quality of your local solar resource
4) the availability of Government subsidies in your local area.
Component costs for solar systems have dropped dramatically in the last ten years. Solar panels and inverters are cheaper than they have ever been. Battery costs haven't dropped much but at least there are alternatives to lead-acid and gel-mat being developed. Tesla's product isn't particularly innovative but it offers some advantages over lead-acid batteries and at least promises wide availability.
If you are a prepper, and live someplace where there is a decent solar resource, you should decide what dollar value you put on grid independence. Then look at the other variables, sharpen up your pencil, and run the numbers. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Evidently you have never watched this documentary. Take the time , its well worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-grdspEWQ
Latest solar panels put out very well even on cloudy days, Hence lots of solar power here in Northern Europe.
Watch the documentary and see what Germans are doing. Get paid to have solar panels on your home.
Latest solar panels put out very well even on cloudy days, Hence lots of solar power here in Northern Europe.
Watch the documentary and see what Germans are doing. Get paid to have solar panels on your home.
Latest solar panels put out very well even on cloudy days, Hence lots of solar power here in Northern Europe.
Watch the documentary and see what Germans are doing. Get paid to have solar panels on your home.
The AC and DC battle was really, at its heart, about centralization or decentralization
Power transmission loss grows exponentially with distance, so efficiencies of scale fall off with distance as well. AC can mitigate some of those losses by up-converting the voltages, but then only so much, as the step ups and then step downs to homes and businesses lose power to heat. But if you position your company as a big connected crony of governmnet, you can mitigate those costs with higher rates without worry of competition.
Therefore you can centralize power generation and transmission in your hands and lock out local DC, and/or AC providers, and then charge higher rates than you would otherwise to boost profits while paying off your pocketed pols.
Anything that truly threatens that monopoly will be sliced, diced, and eaten. So any talk of doing so within the current framework is talk of unicorns.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
There are advantages to AC when transmitting large amounts of energy over long distance.
But as solar and such starts spreading, the need for big central energy producing plants will lessen. The distance and amount of energy being pushed through will lessen. If individual homes and buildings have the ability to produce and store energy, then the grid can become more of a full duplex sort of web. One source is consuming, another has excess. I imagine each block of houses having panels on the roofs connected to a storage unit that the whole block can charge into and draw from. Each house has a meter. The cost is geared to payback and upkeep of the block's system. Use more, pay more. But payments have no profit overhead. Other blocks are also connected, metered by block usage, blocks pay or receive pay from other blocks. With minimal computerized tracking, the system can predict equipment replacement schedules, need to enlarge the production and storage. If it is a DC system of say 24 volts, the grid equipment is simpler, cheaper.
What you describe is already being done in Germany. Actually you can get paid for allowing solar panels on your roof.
The thing about such schemes is that they are just that-- schemes.
They distort the true economic picture and shift the costs of Enlightened Person A over to poor, unable-to-afford-it schlub B who is trapped into dependency on the ordinary grid.
If it is a DC system of say 24 volts, the grid equipment is simpler, cheaper.
The DC can only run from the panels to the inverter. The house needs to run on AC or else you are going to have to wire the house using the equivelent of battery cables . . . . or not use anything in the house over 10-15 amps or so. 10-15 amps is only 240-360 watts on 24 volts DC so forget about using a fridge, microwave, electric stove, pumps, etc.
The arguement betwen AC vs DC had to do with propogation loss and how to step down the HV power to something useful for commercial/residential places (about 440 AV in US/NA.)
BTW, Europe chose 220/240 and was correct but using 50Hz vs 60Hz was an error (loss of efficency since ac depends on 3 phase at the generation point.)
There is a reason that AC won out over DC. Look it up...
>direct DC powered
HOW?
THe mere fact you put these words out into the ether automatically qualifies you as in the lower 50% of one of the better known George Carlin Internet memes...
You are quite the fucktard. hahah
have any Muslims tried to convert you to Christianity today dutchess?
Having problem with reading comprehensions, dipshit? I never said that, I stated that Muslims have never gotten in my face trying to convert me. But lots of Christers have. Obnoxious assholes they are. LIKE YOU>
There is a reason that AC won out over DC . . .
The main reason is power loss over distance in transmission of electricity. DC looses a LOT of power when transmitted over even short distances while AC has relatively little loss when transmitted over the lines. This issue was the main point of contention between Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla - and Tesla won out. Edison even went so far as to promote using AC in the electric chair to "prove" how dangerous it was - but in reality he was trying to discredit Tesla's advocation of AC power.
The batard had an elephant killed.
Sorry - DC power is not practical for anything but low power applications in a home as the size of the wiring would have to be HUGE to allow the necessary amperage to flow to the device being powered. A good example is the size of the cables in a car to run the starter - typically they are 0 gauge or 00 gauge - which is about 3/8" thick pure copper. The same HP motor on AC can run with power lines 1/8" thick (look at an extension cord and compare it to a battery cable in a car). imagine having to wire a house using 3/8" thick copper wire and in some cases for very high amperage (pumps, washing machines, etc.) the cables for DC power would have to be 1/2" thick or more . . . . volts X amps = WATTS
"There are several battery inovations that are probably going to make it to market, that would be cheaper better storage mediums."
Start naming them. Oh, and it's always: "It's just around the corner."
"The best way to make these things happen is through building codes. A well designed house is ready to use less energy. Get a bigger chunk of that up front cost put into the mortgage at time of sale. Spread out over a long payback period."
No, the best way ANYTHING happens is over true cost realization. I'll agree that design has a LOT to do with this. I'll further state, as a firm believer in passive solar designs, that it most definitely WILL cost more owing to the need for more substantial materials (mass) and or siting requirements.
"The individual trying to move ahead faster, has to pay a big premium to do it."
And what premium are you able to pay? And these folks should also pay, how?:
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/faces-of-poverty/
These discussions always have such an elitist air to them. If I didn't know any better I'd say that they differ little from Keynesian economic thinking/practices.
Jay Leno has an antique steam powered car.
You burn coal or wood to boil water in the trunk area to drive a steam generator. Takes longer to charge an electric car than it does to get the water boiling on one of those babies. Back to the Future, Bitch-ez.
Another thing... Old cars already used to run on both ethanol or petroleum gas. Average people would distill their own high test grain alcohol and either used it in their own cars or seld it on the side of the road to passersby before gas stations were plentiful. Rockefeller didn't like competition from the people so he spent $200 Million in todays money financing the PROHIBITION amendmendment in Washington.
Thanks a lot Bilderbergers.
As someone who cuts wood for heating I can assure you that cut wood doesn't just magically appear (figure the same for coal, but I don't have any experience with it or have found any on my property so I can't claim to be an expert).
"Average people would distill their own high test grain alcohol and either used it in their own cars or seld it on the side of the road to passersby before gas stations were plentiful."
Average people? Are you saying this was common practice and on a fairly large scale (what percentage of people)? In a pinch, and in places, perhaps. It isn't, however, anything that could remotely be said to be scalable: no matter what conspiracy is lurking out there against it, it fails the sustainability test based on thermodynamics.
Again, just because something is possible, and perhaps practiced here and there, it don't mean that it's practical or scalable.
The great thing about solar is you can start with small system and add panels and storage when you can afford more or find good deals on them.
And, magically, the battery array grows as well! Oh, and the inverter and controllers, they TOO magically adjust to your just dropping on simple "panels!"
I wonder how expensive those panels from China are going to eventually end up being...
Just put a cool LOGO on it and some subtle shots of it in movies and people will buy it even if its crap. Like iPhones.
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME
Right track?
For me the other day, the PowerWall did make for a humorous read.
I think it was an Ars Technica article. They sure liked to use the word "carbon" a lot. Like "carbon" may be part of some kind of propagandist meme or something.
It all is really quite funny, Tesla and its hype.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Chopping wood and running diesels. Doing my part to keep balance!
Crazy guy this Musk, first with cars now with this, just buy a 700 $ generator and you have power anytime you want.
This is truly the era of the crazy buisiness model.
700 dollars won't even buy you 2000 WATT generator.
You can have power anytime you want with a good solar setup also.. Do you know ANYTHING about a good solar setup?
Why not watch some YouTubes from individuals who have made great setups?
It won't?
http://www.costco.com/Champion-7500-Running9375-Peak-Watts-Gas-Generator...
NOisy crap and won't last. Look at a Honda or Yamaha 2000 watt that is very quiet and can be picked up with one hand. 900 bucks.
2000 watts won't even run the pump for my well - no 220 volts either. Useless unless you just want to run your fridge and TV.
Runs 8 hours on a 5.7 gallon tank at 50 percent load. At 3 bucks a gallon thats a lot of cash to run a genny.,
You can run the whole home on an average CHEAP solar setup.
and no noise and stink either.
You can run the whole home on an average CHEAP solar setup . .
Again, bullshit. A solar system to run a house would have to be in the 7,500 watt range minimum (unless you limit your power use to a few lights and a hot plate) and would require a huge bank of deep cycle batteries to provide power during non-optimum solar periods or at night. That type of system is NOT CHEAP!
You truly are a fucking idiot. My whole home is LED lighting, have 3 PC's running 24/7 and 52 inch HDTV and coffee machine toaster and don't use more tha 4KW.
Again fuck off withw your total moronic Americunt bullshit , you goddam retard.
Yawn. Oh, and how do you wash your clothes?
In contrast to US models, it's almost impossible to find a European washer with a second, hot water inlet (assuming you heat your water with solar thermal panels or natural gas.)
Keep keep spewing your "Europeans know/do everything better" but remember, dimwit: Never believe your own propaganda.
You could find an old 4 cylinder diesel. build a quiet box for it. run the radiator cooling liquid into pipes into the home and heat the home with it plus generate electricity,. No loss .
Google is your friend, right? That's what you keep telling us...
Now google this...
2000 watt generator for $700
Standard Disclaimer: It's obvious at this point you should just stfu...
Sure, Bozo, you can buy lots of cheap crap but try buying a Yamaha or Honda genny for that amount.
Do your homework and get back to me, or just STFU.
Yer puttin' alot o' work into slammon' the peeps that actually do the dance.
This indicats Brain Death.
RIP Dutchboy2015
mebbey you gots some dyke probs to sort?
The best advice on generators I ever got was from an old guy who did nothing but repair them as his only line of work.
He WOULD NOT TOUCH a made-in-China product, no matter what nameplate was on it. All junk good for a couple hundred hours tops before you throw them out. All hard to work on. All hard to get parts for.
He refused to recommend any particular brand but advised me to visit a contractor's tool rental yard to see what they used since these will always be the most durable units.
So I took his advice and peeked inside the shed. A whole wall filled with Wackers, ready to go.
So I have a Wacker for a generator.
And, of course, I have other wackers for other things as well but that's a different story.
Sure, Bozo, you can buy lots of cheap crap. . . .
I've had the "cheap crap" Harbor Freight 3,500 watt generator I paid $340 plus shipping for over 8 years and the thing starts every time the power goes out and I've never had a problem - it was/is a great deal. If you are going to use one every day by all means go and spend $1,500-$2,000 on a generator.
But not pure sine wave. It is dirty power.
I had an asswipe fucktard neighbour like you, He ran his loud genny all day and I went and sugared his fucking tank.
He ran his loud genny all day and I went and sugared his fucking tank.
This statement, along with your language (or lack thereof) throughout this thread, shows you are a prince among men. What a great guy!
700 dollars won't even buy you 2000 WATT generator.
Bullshit. You can get a 5,000 watt generator from Harbor Freight or Northern Tools for around $500. For the same power in solar you are going to pay around $5,000. With solar what are you going to do at night or when it's cloudy?? Oh, I guess you'll have to spend another $500 for a bank of deep cycle batteries to go with the solar set-up.
hahah Harbor Freight sells crap. You are a fucking idiot. and no NOTHING about solar or generators.
TAke a hike you son of a bitch.
"Do you know ANYTHING about a good solar setup? "
Yeah, but I'd have to charge you for the information. And NO, I didn't acquire my knowledge of energy from YouTube.
Spend the money to get the best MPPT controller and a PURE SINE WAVE inverter. The solar panels and batteries can be easily added as your finances allow.
Thats not MY advice. Thats the advice of people who have successfull home solar setups and you can watch how they do it just by simply doing a YouTube search.
You elitist prick, 2/3 of the world's population lives on the equivilant of $3/day and here you're talking as though anyone can dole out for "the best MPPT controller" and "PURE SINE WAVE inverter" (why the caps in the later?).
"Thats not MY advice. Thats the advice of people who have successfull home solar setups and you can watch how they do it just by simply doing a YouTube search."
That's the advice of the rich and famous, and those who work in the industry. Please continue to support the cause in order to allow them to continue to rule over us!
Used [Tesla battery] packs are difficult to recycle
Huh?
Why is that. I was so far under the assumption that the lithium would be relatively easy to recycle out of used packs.
The recycled Lithium battery industry is in it's infancy, it costs about 5 times more to recyclce than to buy it on the open market.
But that will change in time.
Article
Pretty good review. They miss one small fact regarding arbitrage, that according to IEEE Spectrum article in 99% of the world when you "feed back" energy to the grid they just throw it away, the systems do not exist to feed energy back into the grid from a myriad of small sources, all sorts of horrible synchronization and stability issues prevent. So it's basically a PR gimmick right now, but the utilities are glad because at least you're not downloading at peak time so that's worth a couple of pennies incentive.
That sounds like pure BS. Link to the IEEE article please.
99% wasted energy might be true today - but "smart inverters" have the means to become real sources during peak demand.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/how-rooftop-solar-can-stabilize-the-grid
Thanks for the link, I don't think that's the one I'm thinking of but I'm pretty sure I read it off the dead tree edition sometime in the last year or so and it went into a little more detail about the problems. I'm not a EE much less a power engineer so can't really judge how close a practical fix might be. The factoid that it's a problem at all surprised me too.
Dont know about IEEE link but am familiar with what they did in Spain. What a complete (almost) screw up, subsidiszed by the government (partly the USG). They could have a more workable system if they could figure out how to store the energy. Solar in the south, wind in the west produced some peaks but were unreliable. Bottom line - they still needed power plants to operate, using gas imported from Lybia.
What a sad joke, kinda like Merkle shutting down German huke plants. How does one say GazProm in Russian?
"They could have a more workable system if they could figure out how to store the energy."
Don't ya think that that is and always will be the Achilles heel to all of this? Only nature seems able to actually manage huge chunks of power. Fucking people blowing themselves up with small batteries and we're wanting to multiply that effect?
"What a sad joke, kinda like Merkle shutting down German huke plants. How does one say GazProm in Russian?"
Ask the general Japanese population if they think it's stupid to shut down nuke plants. Maybe some folks actually understand the true costs/risks? Eventually they will ALL fail. No argument for the pain in the up-front electrical loss, but in the long-run it'll be much easier to deal with than a bunch of Fukushimas.
No discussion yet about the safety of these storage units.
-Electro-magnetic fields around them. How far away from them should you stay?
-Is it safe to sleep right beside them?
-What happens in the event of a house fire? Are these things dangerously explosive?
-Liquid-cooled. What liquid is in it?
I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens in the future.
doesn't matter how many batteries you have if they are all wired in parallel at 24 volts.
They are simply storage devices. The batteries are charged from solar panels and controlled by a charge controller. The energy demand comes from batteries to an inverter which takes the 24 volts and changes it to AC for your appliances.
You have a battery in your car right? are you afraid of it also? :-)
The problem is that first responders do NOT like having to deal with self energized devices.
Currently a BIG problem with solar PV roof installations.
There will be more electrical codes written and it will just up the cost of these things.
Perhaps its a BIG problem in the USA but no here where we have competent electricians.
Thanks, but what I meant that if there is a house fire, they normally have to ventilate through the top of the roof, ie get out the fire axes and chop a hole in the roof.
Can't do that if there is a live active solar PV sitting on the roof...
These things are even energized in the moonlight.
I had no idea that the Turks knew so much about electricity.
You had no idea because you are a goddam FUCKTARD.
Sure, but I'm an AMERICAN fucktard living in my own country, rather than a refugee touting the benefits of living in someone else's USA-conquered territory.
And, speaking strictly as a fucktard, I built my solar system from scratch, including tearing off the roof of my barn and rebuilding it to a proper solar angle and north-south orientation.
Didn't need no YouTube to figure it out, either.
As for off-grid advice, mine starts here:
Buy a decent generator first and everything else afterwards. That way you can produce your own power right away and add everything else as you go. Purchasing a component here and a component there leaves you with a pile of parts until the system is ready to assemble.
At least in my state they simpley require cut offs for the fire department to use. Not a BIG problem at all.
All appliances are DC they all use AC inverters so you can plug them into your AC house power.
Huh? Maybe on your planet .
Ac power is not inverted to DC in appliances. Its hot 120vac all the way thru.
Also, AC is rectified to DC, not inverted.
It's AMPERAGE that kills.
I manage animals using electrified wire in the 7k volt range. Hasn'd killed ANY animal of mine yet: dog gets shocked a few times, but it is still alive.