Grid Storage Opportunity for Tesla

Pretty amazing..

I'm sure that Tesla is very aware. It wants to produce 15 GWh of storage per year at the Gigafactory. That's tiny compared to US demand, which averages near 13,000 GWh per day.

For october 2014, HI's electricity generation was 869GWh,, 28GWh per day. Plenty of market to be had.

There's also this -

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000349516

Basically the approaching storm in the north east causes channels like CNBC to call up companies like Generac (stock is up 5% today) for commentary in regard to spiking sales of backup energy solutions, and the reliability of the national power grid.

Once Tesla/Solar City have a compelling product for sale, 1) I'm buying it for my house and 2) it will get boosts from this sort of bad weather too.

Great link. I liked the part highlighting lead-acid's cycle weakness.

I wouldn't say Kauai generates "80% of its energy from solar panels". What they said was "peak solar output on Kauai will approach 80 percent of power generation on some days". Most regard utility energy in terms of watt-hours, not instantaneous power. He was talking about that static, peak MW output. The pie chart of where Kauai's energy comes from would look very different.

Swiss Co Alevo comes to Concord, NC. Will produce new batteries. The old Phillip Morris Co.

We were without power for several days a couple of years ago in Minneapolis. We were glad to own a Volt and not a pure BEV -- I wonder how big of a Generac system would be required to keep a Volt, 85KW Tesla running when this happens again. Has anyone investigated this?

The power needed to charge a Model S depends on how far you drive it each day. I typically drive 60 miles a day, consuming about 20 kWh. I can set the charging current as I need it, and efficiency is reasonably high once you get to around 20A @240V or about 5 kW. A typical whole-home generator, judging by the Home Depot offerings, might generate 16 - 20 kW, so I'd only need 25% of that generator's output, in the middle of the night, between 2AM and 7AM to keep me charged.

If you drive farther, you could just extend the charging time. Only once you get above 100-150 miles per day would the charging power need to be increased.

cottylowry said:

We were without power for several days a couple of years ago in Minneapolis. We were glad to own a Volt and not a pure BEV -- I wonder how big of a Generac system would be required to keep a Volt, 85KW Tesla running when this happens again. Has anyone investigated this?

Click to expand...

0kW for a Volt as long as the gas stations have power. Depends on how much capacity you'd need, taking efficiency of charging somewhat into account. The thing is, if you avoid long trips when power's out, you might not need faster charging, in which case 3.3kW charging (Volt 1 limit) is less than larger appliance loads. . Our peak is when the stove is running, not when the Volt's being charged (I have it charging at midnight; off peak starts at 8pm, but we run laundry and dishes then.)