An interesting article on Tesla's Powerwall that addresses issues related to cost, safety, grid tie vs. off - grid, lead acid vs. L-ion.
Will The Tesla PowerWall let you go off grid for $3500 ? - Solar Quotes Blog
I'm impressed that Tesla offers a 10 year warranty on the Powerwall. I'm interested to learn more about inverter compatibility.
Next, what we need to get in North America is something like THIS, so we can sell the accumulated power in that battery automatically on the spot market instead of at whatever rate the utility decides to offer or the local PUC sets.
Next, what we need to get in North America is something like THIS, so we can sell the accumulated power in that battery automatically on the spot market instead of at whatever rate the utility decides to offer or the local PUC sets.
Next, what we need to get in North America is something like THIS, so we can sell the accumulated power in that battery automatically on the spot market instead of at whatever rate the utility decides to offer or the local PUC sets.
+1
We have a grid-tied array on our home in the Phoenix area. Excess power we feed back into the grid during high demand, high cost on-peak hours is reimbursed to us by our local utility at the wholesale rate while power we pull during off peak is charged to us at retail (that includes power generation charges). And yet there are still complaints from the utility and others about solar customers not paying their share of the freight for use of the grid.
+1
We have a grid-tied array on our home in the Phoenix area. Excess power we feed back into the grid during high demand, high cost on-peak hours is reimbursed to us by our local utility at the wholesale rate while power we pull during off peak is charged to us at retail (that includes power generation charges). And yet there are still complaints from the utility and others about solar customers not paying their share of the freight for use of the grid.
Just hold the phone a minute. My ER is partially funded by electric utility company dividends, so I need things to continue as is, rigged in favor of the utility , not the power customer
This product is a baby step, but it's real. It's going to take time, like 15-20 years, distributed generation on the grid is going to happen. The vested interests , like my electric utility companies will fight , eventually they will have to adapt.
Actually, if something like the earlier link, Reposit Power , comes to pass, why would the utilities fight it? More people supplying energy for the peaks means more competition and lower spot prices. The utilities have to buy/produce that peak power to sell to you (at average rates) - the more suppliers the merrier.
But as I also said, if this is cost effective, it sure would seem like the utilities would jump on it themselves. One large installation versus hundreds of homes makes a lot more sense. And those installations can still be small enough to be distributed around a populated area, to reduce distribution losses.
When solar/wind become big sources on the grid (w/o storage), it is a problem for the utilities - they may have to ramp up their peaker plants as these supplies vary, and they don't have any control over it. So at some point they will (and are) fighting that. But if people are connecting batteries, that helps to smooth out the variance - it's all good (if it is affordable).
-ERD50
Large scale , it has been done in Japan, even before the Fukashima disaster, using Sodium sulfur battery tech. I don't know id li-on is scaleable on an economic basis. The sodium sulfur tech has low losses in charge/discharge (under 10 %) but I wouldn't want it near my house.