Tesla Plans Battery for Household Energy-Storage Market
February 12th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
Via: Bloomberg:
Tesla Motors Inc., best known for making the all-electric Model S sedan, is using its lithium-ion battery technology to position itself as a frontrunner in the emerging energy-storage market that supplements and may ultimately threaten the traditional electric grid.
“We are going to unveil the Tesla home battery, the consumer battery that would be for use in people’s houses or businesses fairly soon,” Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said during an earnings conference call with analysts Wednesday.
Combining solar panels with large, efficient batteries could allow some homeowners to avoid buying electricity from utilities. Morgan Stanley said last year that Tesla’s energy-storage product could be “disruptive” in the U.S. and in Europe as customers seek to avoid utility fees by going “off-grid.” Musk said the product unveiling would occur within the next month or two.
“We have the design done, and it should start going into production in about six months or so,” Musk said. “It’s really great.”
@ Kevin: I have to confess, I’m so weary of absurd electricity and heating costs after a cold stretch of winter that I’m really becoming very interested in solar now, even though I’m marooned on a cloudy swamp in the north Atlantic.
Assuming one were able to build a new house, do you think solar PV tied to a ground source heat pump could be a viable option, say if connected to a thermal store cylinder feeding underfloor piping?
I would love to get totally off-grid energy wise, but realise it could be hard to do without access to a fast watercourse and a micro hydro setup.
I don’t see how you could go wrong with a ground source heat pump combined with solar. That heat pump technology can be between COP 3 and 6. So running that thing for free with solar power sounds pretty good to me.
I’m definitely not an expert, though. For a capital outlay as large as what’s required for a ground source heat pump, you’d need better advice than I’m capable of providing.
From my basic understanding of heat pumps, it seems that using solar for those devices is going to be a smart move.
If you have a site that’s conducive to microhydro, that’s the ultimate way to go because you get the power 24/7. But ask around and see how others are faring with solar in your area. I’m constantly amazed by how well my Trina Honey panels do in cloudy conditions. Trina panels are the most popular panels in the world (two years in a row) for a reason: Value for money. It’s that simple. We have them side by side with Q-Cells down in Auckland and my manager tells me the Trinas are making 2% more power while costing a lot less.
Also, if you decide to go with solar, consider micro-inverters even if you don’t have any shading issues, or mixed orientation and pitch issues that would wreck production on a string inverter. I’m suggesting Enphase across the board now, and customers agree. I haven’t sold a single string inverter system since I was trained on Enphase, and I think my SMA Sunnyboy 5000-TL21 is fantastic. If I had to do it over again, and if I had the extra money, I’d go with Enphase.
But on systems at around 3KW and under, the price difference between a top quality SMA string inverter and Enphase micros is negligible. At 4kw, I think micros are still worth it. By 5KW, you’re definitely feeling the extra cost of micros vs. string.
Wow, thanks for the very thorough reply (now copied and pasted into a document for personal reference).
I’m looking ahead to a situation where I want to be ideally 100% energy self-sufficient so considerable up-front expense will be seen (by me) as a necessary evil.
I think a lot of people have been disappointed with wind turbines, even here in Ireland where we get battered with more than our fair share of low pressure weather systems, but as you say, the microhydro would be the gold standard if the right site could be found (although I hope to look way beyond Ireland!)
A lot of people seem to be installing Solar PV on their roofs now and I hear only very positive things about them; I can imagine that it must be even better in sunny north NZ.
BTW, have you heard of solar optimisers at all? I was reading about them recently (in a UK context, naturally) and they appear to be some kind of system that activates an immersion heater rather than directing surplus electricity into the main supply grid.
I’ve got a 3kw solar system on my house and have had it for 10 years. The battery storage has always been the weak link, and an expensive one too. I switched out my high-maintenance Surrette batteries a few years ago for some AGM types, and they’re certainly a lot less hassle since they’re sealed and don’t require the constant baby sitting.
So, this is really good news (hooray, for a change) and I’m hoping these Tesla batteries will become available before TSHTF and that they’ll be competitive and have higher capacity. Haven’t read the article yet…. zipping over there right now. 🙂
Yes, re: selective loads: That stuff is available. SMA has really gone all the way in that regard:
http://www.sma.de/en/home-systems/solar-system-smart.html
EnaSolar in NZ just came out with this:
http://www.enasolar.net/Products/immerSUN
There are probably lots of others.
It sounds very good in theory, and I think it probably makes sense, but the costs of that gear definitely make the proposition less than clear cut for me.
Here’s what I did to sort of split the difference with our system:
I have a timer on the hot water cylinder so that it only runs during the day (run time can be set in 15 minute increments, plugs into distribution board).
On very dark, stormy days, we’ll pull from the grid, but with our 5KW rig, we have to be doing better than 98% of our hot water for free. Becky sometimes likes a relaxing bath after the kids are asleep, so I flick the switch to manually override the timer to make sure she has plenty of hot water. I sometimes shower at night with whatever hot water is left in the cylinder. It’s no problem in summer, but I’ve had it run cold on me in winter. (We have 180 litres.) If you are in a position to put in a larger hot water cylinder than you might normally use, do it. That thing will serve as a sort of battery. With more hot water on hand, you can set your cylinder timer to come on later in the day to have a better chance of having the solar cranking it for free while maintaining a substantial reserve of hot water for early morning use.
When I say that it has run cold on me in winter, keep in mind, that’s after cleanup from the evening meal and bathing three kids. Outside temps could be between 1C and 7C. Of course, there’s no good reason why I can’t shower during the day with the free hot water, and that’s what I do most of the time.
For our fridge/freezer, I use a NZ$4 timer to make sure it stays off from 4am to 8am (your times will vary based on location, season and refrigeration appliance). Yes, it’s going to need to grunt a bit more when it clicks on in the morning. That’s fine. That electricity is free most days at that time with our 5KW system.
The power companies want to buy the excess juice off us for as low as possible and then sell it back to us at night for a lot more. Anything that we can do to minimize the loads at night is very worth doing.
Another cool option is the Wattson, which changes colours in real time to let you know if you’re importing or exporting. Some people like having a realtime go or no-go signal for running loads like laundry, vacuum cleaner, water kettle, etc.
http://www.diykyoto.com/uk/aboutus/wattson-solar-plus
We install those and people like them.
Now, imagine we’re two years in the future and have a dozen next gen battery options to choose from.
Export to the grid only after your hot water cylinder is fully heated and your batteries are charged!
Enphase users are less than two years away from this being a cost effective reality. My whole company was conferenced in with the Enphase guys for Australasia and, while they wouldn’t give us any pricing for the upcoming “AC Battery,” they understand that it has to be affordable.
And that was a couple of months months ago, long before Musk upset the apple cart with the news of the upcoming Tesla battery. Who has more experience than Tesla with running large loads from next gen batteries? I don’t know, but what I do know for sure is that the next two years are going to be very exciting for those of us who have been waiting decades for better battery options. It’s finally happening.
Can’t wait? Need it now? Early adopters can go with Aquion. Those units are already shipping in limited quantities.
http://www.aquionenergy.com/
I’m going to have to get Becky to lock up my wallet and ducktape my hands to my chair to keep me from getting batteries for a while.
We wants it, we needs it.
Export to the grid only after your hot water cylinder is fully heated and your batteries are charged!
Yes! This is what I’m looking forward to. Thanks for all the great info above, Kevin. Cheers!