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Merged Battery assault? / Tesla's Powerwall

Yep we did. Saving about 1/3 of our energy bills these days. The excess goes into the grid and we get a payment for that. With this technology you can store it from what I read. Expensive though!
 
It's a reasonable though pricey alternative to a small generator in power outages, and a much better storage medium for solar installations than lead acid batteries. As for "Tesla Powerwall is a home battery that will end humanity's reliance on fossil fuels", from the link, probably not.

Specs and pricing:
http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall
 
I just completed building my new home and installed solar onto the roof in the process. My local city buys the excess electricity produced, but pays at the end of the year and at a rate they deem fair. It isn't a locked in rate, so there is no guarantee I'd get a good return for producing extra electricity. I therefore tried to match how much electricity I'd generate versus how much I'd use over the course of a year and installed panels that would roughly match that.

At $3000 a piece, I wonder how long it would take to pay itself off assuming a lowball rate the city would pay. Probably too long....
 
Tesla's Powerwall

So I just saw a little diddy about this new product from Tesla called "Powerwall"


Basically a huge Lithium Ion battery. Word is that it can be coupled with solar energy to power your home during the day, and it charges up at night when energy companies (apparently) charge less, ultimately saving you 25% on your energy bill.

Is this a case of too good to be true?

At first glance, I seem to recall that these types of batteries are prone to spontaneous combustion.
 
I'd be interested to see the added cost of the panels, installation and the ac/dc inverter, plus the estimated life of the system.
 
Rum said:
Yep we did. Saving about 1/3 of our energy bills these days. The excess goes into the grid and we get a payment for that. With this technology you can store it from what I read. Expensive though!
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Well, that price will go down as they improve the technology.

I like the idea that solar power can be stored, it's an important milestone in weaning us off dead dinosaur juice.
 
My biggest concern is for the firemen responding to a structure fire that may or may not know that a device like this is in play. Cutting the mains power is no longer sufficient to ensure electrical isolation.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Well, that price will go down as they improve the technology.

I like the idea that solar power can be stored, it's an important milestone in weaning us off dead dinosaur juice.
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Folks like to laugh at us RVers. You'll catch up... little by little. :D

I do like the progress away from lead acid storage. On this scale, it's too new to me for opinion, so I'll just keep watching.
 
Jim_MDP said:
Folks like to laugh at us RVers. You'll catch up... little by little. :D

I do like the progress away from lead acid storage. On this scale, it's too new to me for opinion, so I'll just keep watching.
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I am scratching my head a bit to figure out what is so revolutionary. But it has Elon at the helm, so it must be my error in missing it. I suppose if I cared more it would jump out at me.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I am scratching my head a bit to figure out what is so revolutionary.
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The price. $3,500 for 10 kWh of lithium-ion batteries, including installation, is incredible. Until today, I doubt you could get it for less than $10,000 -- even in industrial quantities.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I am scratching my head a bit to figure out what is so revolutionary. But it has Elon at the helm, so it must be my error in missing it. I suppose if I cared more it would jump out at me.
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Glad you mentioned that, I wanted to do so myself.

Using LIon instead of lead acid is IMO evolutionary, not revolutionary. But as you say, Elon's name will draw attention and that's a good thing. I see this as a profit venture and a slight nudge toward further progress.

If one is interested in home power alternatives, one could do a lot worse than looking at RV forums and the companies we use and recommend. Another group are the "off the grid" types. A bit of esoteric philosophy there, but many of them do know their ****. :p

They are however a rather small and DIY focused group on the whole, whereas there are a few million RVers in the US alone, and there is decades of experience with the latest and greatest in solar, gennies and storage/distribution.

This Tesla product may be a viable solution for only a small percentage of home situations, but it is definitely a high profile push towards mainstream awareness (and may accelerate the availability of more efficient storage for my two RVs. Yay!). It'll be fun to watch.
 
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Mark6 said:
The price. $3,500 for 10 kWh of lithium-ion batteries, including installation, is incredible. Until today, I doubt you could get it for less than $10,000 -- even in industrial quantities.
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Rum said:
And hopefully a tipping point will be reached and prices will drop a lot further in due course.
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See... that's what I mean. I have no LIoN experience outside of my laptop batts. No idea what should be the price point when talking about such a consumer level massive package.

It should also push solar even more. There's been a very recent jump in performance/longevity and pricing. I'm expecting to do something massive this year for my "no solar" new-to-me Class A. And 6V lead acids (golf cart batts) are stupid pricy but I'll be needing something there too. Reasonably priced and safe LIoN packs (~200 to 400 Ah) would be cool.
 
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Mark6 said:
The price. $3,500 for 10 kWh of lithium-ion batteries, including installation, is incredible. Until today, I doubt you could get it for less than $10,000 -- even in industrial quantities.
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That makes sense. I hadn't put numbers to it yet. That really could be a huge shift in the market. He can afford to lose a few bucks on early models knowing that his price per unit will come down over time if he prices it in a way to really drive volume.

Jim: I know Lithium Phosphate batteries have been used by some RVers, but Lithium Ion has been out of reach for price reasons for common usage. I hope this makes it more accessible to the hobby and drives some other competitors to come to the market. It would be a real revolution in that market.
 
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Now I'm looking for a proper capitalization for the lith ion abbreviation. Don't believe I've ever written anything about them before and nothing looks right. :boggled:

:p
 
GE (General Electric) and South Korea's LG Chem are both working on rival technologies from what I read and they have deeper pockets. Competition in any case can only benefit the rest of us.
 
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