Tesla PowerWall

10kwh for $3500, and it hangs on the wall. Cool 
They are solar ready, and up to 9 can be put in a home for a total of 90kwh. They begin shipping this summer.
I stayed up late and watched the announcement, thought I would share.

They are solar ready, and up to 9 can be put in a home for a total of 90kwh. They begin shipping this summer.
I stayed up late and watched the announcement, thought I would share.
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So did i...
I was in the process of pricing out lead acid and nickel iron battery banks for my new homegrown PV system, to see if I could afford to go off grid.
A lead acid bank for an off-grid system that will see me through 3 days of cloudy weather, would cost about $12-14k and lasts about 7-10 years.
A nickel iron bank of similar capacity is considerably more expensive, at about $25 to 30k, but may last well over 25 years and is supposedly much more forgiving, operation, maintenance and upkeep wise.
Both would require a dedicated room with racking for over a ton of batteries, proper ventilation to evacuate hydrogen and at my latitude, be insulated against the coldest part of the winter.
A similar sized Tesla Powerwall system would take 2, or maybe 3, of the Powerwall units at $7k (2 units) or 11k (3 units), is warrantied for 10 years, is maintenance free, weighs 440 or 660 lbs and installs on the wall of my garage, or basement!
I think Elon Musk just put a lot of deep cycle battery manufacturers out of business...
130 cm x 86 cm x 18 cm
How many PV companies are still around, that were top of the pile 10 years ago?? Does the name Evergreen ring a bell? What is the likelihood of this warranty being any good? Just saying...
KID #51B 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
Well I don't buy anything I expect to need warranty on. I have been amazed for years with what a lithium ion battery is capable of for both work load and longevity. I have no reservations on quality or longevity. The wow for me is that they want to officially warranty it for 20 years.
KID #51B 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
And, of course, you can run AC inverters from that too--Just have to design them for off grid applications.
I believe, from what I have seen over the years, the automotive battery packs have chosen to go with lots of small cells in series to produce high voltage DC--Less copper for wiring and such.
I have always worried about the issue of lots of cells in series--I would think one really needs a per cell voltage monitoring system to ensure long battery life and avoid one of a hundred cells killing the entire battery string.
I have not looked at the Tesla announcements yet... I believe the "Dumb" comment earlier was directed towards designing an integrated high voltage battery bank that has virtually no support in the existing Off Grid / Hybrid inverter market (edited to avoid confusion).
While I can understand the questions about a completely different battery topology--It could become one of those game changing technologies. How this will all fall out in the future (good/bad idea)--I have no idea.
A good quote:
http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/29/its-easier-to-invent-the-future-than-to-predict-it/
From a job listing by Jeff Bezos for Amazon in 1994.
Amazon has certainly shaken up the future--But what will fall out--Still to be determined.
-Bill
I was asking if it had it's own power management to transform the battery voltage to a more standard In/Out for existing equipment. Say 48VDC or 120VAC.
It could potentially at those voltages be designed to go between the panels and grid tie inverter to bank some solar and then deliver it to the grid tie inverter after hours to keep supplementing house hold consumption and not have to rely as much on net metering. Though that would be an expensive option to net metering and grid down power is really the selling point of this to most people I would think.
For the record, Evergreen is not the best example of this, Evergreen had some very good technology and though they went bankrupt they were bought in total before closing, by a China group. I don't know were this put warranty requests, but they have maintained the website ...
- Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
- Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
I watched a video that one of the Tesla Home Battery testers made, power was out to all his neighbors, but his home was running.
Yea unfortunately for anyone using vehicle batteries, this is different. But on the plus side, it's aimed at getting new people setup (that's me!), not re-configuring existing users.
Also, it's not clear how many kWh it can store daily; the "depth of discharge" might not be figured in.
Also not sure how much that degrades over time.
All that will probably be cleared up by this summer, I'm looking forward to hearing more.
Whether this pays off for anyone probably depends strongly on tariffs... for areas with no net metering, no FIT, and high demand charges, it'd potentially be a great deal, but the devil is in the details.
"3. Notably, that doesn’t include the cost of the inverter or installation. In a conference call a year ago, Musk gave his first hint of what he wanted the Powerwall system to look like, including an "integrated bidirectional inverter, and it’s just plug and play.” The inverter and installation can more than double the price of a home storage system."
Appears these units are going to be designed to just "sit" between the grid and the user to supply battery based power - likely whenever you want it! If the utility companies would come up with a billing structure that would optimize their own generation capabilities and costs - and pass it along to the users - this concept could be a huge boon to us "renewable guys". Mass production of a very stable, warranteed battery design that appears to be almost cost competitive and maintenance free - too good to be true?? MPPT charge controllers of the correct voltage/control along with off-grid inverters might quickly follow. Also, for us Priups owners, this type of battery technology integrates well with our inverters already - just need to tone down the voltages a bit!
I doubt there will be much user configuration of these units - the battery management/charging/discharging schema I'd guess will be tightly controlled. But that has never stopped DYI'rs before. I wonder about heat dissipation??
I think they are shooting for a modular design, I'm sure cracking the case can and will be done, but a 10 year warranty might be a terrible thing to waste.
- Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
Going to high pack voltage lets you minimize the size of intercell connectors and other wiring.
KID #51B 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
I think the key point is that Tesla isn't selling a battery, it's selling a battery system.
So the package includes software, charge management, monitoring, etc., and you can't rewire or rearrange the components.
This is likely to take some getting used to for people who have invested a lot of time an energy learning how to manage a traditional battery bank.
One interesting bit of speculation I've seen is that the 10 kWh and the 7 kWh units actually have the same physical battery inside the box--just that one is programmed for optimal performance with 10 kWh discharge on a weekly basis, and other other is programmed for 7 kWh on a daily basis.
Do you have a reference for those numbers? I have a bit of a reaction to why someone would pay $3500 for 10kWh /7 days vs $3000 for 7kWh every day?
KID #51B 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
- Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
Right off the Tesla Energy website: http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall
They list two models, "10 kWh for backup applications" and "7 kWh for daily cycle applications."
Tesla has a ten-year warranty for both models, but over ten years the "daily cycle" battery would have around 3,500 cycle, and the "backup" battery would have many fewer cycles, probably less than 500.
So the speculation is that both models have exactly the same battery pack inside, but the "daily cycle" version is programmed to provide less discharge in order to preserve the 7 kWh of available power through 3,500 cycles, while the "backup" version is programmed to allow you to pull up to 10 kWh in a cycle since it only has to last a few hundred cycles.
This also presumes that the integrated charge controller is designed to make it hard for the customer to damage the battery by discharging it too deeply (hard, but not impossible. Just like a Tesla car battery, you could wreck this battery by discharging it and then disconnecting it from the power for an extended period of time).
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/46756-Elon-I-love-you-but-the-PowerWall-isn-t-that-great-yet?p=994934#post994934