Home Storage speculation and predictions

Gerasimental · Feb 12, 2015

Since home storage will be unveiled in the next few months and begin roll-out this summer, I thought it would be good to have a thread where we can discuss the potential implication of this.

At the moment it is basically one big unknown, but I'm sure with the combined wisdom of this forum we can manage to at least get some clarity and figure out to some extent what we are dealing withe here.

Questions to be answered include:

-How many units will be delivered?
-What are the economics for Tesla (margins, revenue)?
-What are the economics for the buyer (price, savings from peak shaving)
-Any surprises? Home supercharging and some kind of SolarCity deal have been suggested.

Ultimately it will be interesting to see if this can go some way toward remaining cash flow positive and financing future capex in the near term and contribute substantially to revenue / replace ZEV revenue in the medium term.

flankspeed8 · Feb 12, 2015

Gerasimental said:
Since home storage will be unveiled in the next few months and begin roll-out this summer, I thought it would be good to have a thread where we can discuss the potential implication of this.

At the moment it is basically one big unknown, but I'm sure with the combined wisdom of this forum we can manage to at least get some clarity and figure out to some extent what we are dealing withe here.

Questions to be answered include:

-How many units will be delivered?
-What are the economics for Tesla (margins, revenue)?
-What are the economics for the buyer (price, savings from peak shaving)
-Any surprises? Home supercharging and some kind of SolarCity deal have been suggested.

Ultimately it will be interesting to see if this can go some way toward remaining cash flow positive and financing future capex in the near term and contribute substantially to revenue / replace ZEV revenue in the medium term.

Where will the profit be in this? If the GF was up and running I would say it is an obvious move as they themselves are producing the bulk of the material. But isn't home storage at this point buying batteries from either Panasonic (or Samsung?), putting it in a nice package and then integrating it with a SCTY system? What would the margin have to be to make a dent in the numbers?

Gerasimental · Feb 12, 2015

flankspeed8 said:
Where will the profit be in this? If the GF was up and running I would say it is an obvious move as they themselves are producing the bulk of the material. But isn't home storage at this point buying batteries from either Panasonic (or Samsung?), putting it in a nice package and then integrating it with a SCTY system? What would the margin have to be to make a dent in the numbers?

I was also slightly surprised they're starting to roll out more than a year before GF starts to produce sales. Maybe they want to have distribution sorted out and start to build up demand and are happy to accept near-zero margins for a year on that so that they can have the biggest possible impact once GF batteries are available. I don't imagine there's any risk of saturating the market by that time.
I guess another question is how much GF capacity will go towards home storage in the medium term (end of 2016 - before Model 3) and the long term (running at full capacity and supplying Model 3).

Robert.Boston · Feb 12, 2015

I want to understand whether the home storage systems are diverting cells from the automotive division, or instead whether they are made of either/both:

New cells that don't quite reach spec, and/or
Cells reclaimed from used and/or defective car batteries.

If the bulk of the cells are 'seconds' of one variety or the other, then this business makes tremendous sense to start ASAP. For Tesla, the most expensive component of the storage system is effectively free.

The demand for storage systems will be high, and willing to pay premiums. I see three primary categories:

Cost-conscious customers looking to reduce their peak energy use. Remember that many customers pay a big portion of their power bills based on the highest 15-minute usage in a month, so managing those peaks can have a quick payback.
Environment-conscious customers who want the sure knowledge that their power usage isn't contributing to global warming (except on rare occasions of long, sunless stretches).
Off-grid applications. Not every house is on the grid, either because of extreme location (AudubonB) or choice. Tesla's compact storage option could enable more people to go off-grid without resorting to feats of amazing engineering DIY like wk057's rehab of a salvage MS 85kWh battery.

uselesslogin · Feb 12, 2015

Robert.Boston said:
I want to understand whether the home storage systems are diverting cells from the automotive division, or instead whether they are made of either/both:

New cells that don't quite reach spec, and/or

Cells reclaimed from used and/or defective car batteries.

If the bulk of the cells are 'seconds' of one variety or the other, then this business makes tremendous sense to start ASAP. For Tesla, the most expensive component of the storage system is effectively free.

Cells at 200 wh/kg vs. 250 wh/kg which are in more plentiful supply. Relevant tweets upon announcement of a solution for businesses.
Elon Musk on Twitter:
Elon Musk on Twitter:

mejojo · Feb 12, 2015

flankspeed8 said:
....But isn't home storage at this point buying batteries from either Panasonic (or Samsung?), putting it in a nice package and then integrating it with a SCTY system?

I don't know that Solar is required for such a system to make sense, depending on how it's configured and priced.

Even without solar on your home, you could charge the battery from the grid during off-off-peak (12 AM - 6 AM usually) at lowest rates and have 0 grid utilization during off-peak and peak hours.

In the event of a grid outage, you could run your home for several days if you use the power appropriately for the conditions.

BornToFly · Feb 14, 2015

Many different supply chains need to come together to build 500,000 vehicles. Maybe the battery supply is ramping up at a rate that is surpassing the auto production right now, and this is a great way to utilize these batteries until they can make more cars, and make a profit at the same time.

AudubonB · Feb 14, 2015

Robert.Boston;906167[COLOR=#f0fff0 said:
]I want to understand whether the home storage systems are diverting cells from the automotive division, or instead whether they are made of either/both:[/COLOR]

New cells that don't quite reach spec, and/or

Cells reclaimed from used and/or defective car batteries.

If the bulk of the cells are 'seconds' of one variety or the other, then this business makes tremendous sense to start ASAP. For Tesla, the most expensive component of the storage system is effectively free.

The demand for storage systems will be high, and willing to pay premiums. I see three primary categories:

Cost-conscious customers looking to reduce their peak energy use. Remember that many customers pay a big portion of their power bills based on the highest 15-minute usage in a month, so managing those peaks can have a quick payback.

Environment-conscious customers who want the sure knowledge that their power usage isn't contributing to global warming (except on rare occasions of long, sunless stretches).

Off-grid applications. Not every house is on the grid, either because of extreme location (AudubonB) or choice. Tesla's compact storage option could enable more people to go off-grid without resorting to feats of amazing engineering DIY like wk057's rehab of a salvage MS 85kWh battery.

I was thinking last night of just this, and, while my own system is now quite a number of years in-place and paid for, I was wondering whether wk057's astonishing project might, in the space of a relatively short number of months, be turned into a lamentable example of "See What You Could Have Done at 1/10th The Cost Had You Waited Half A Year"?

In the meantime, I'm terribly reluctant about this, but I guess if my arm's twisted enough I could volunteer myself to be a beta-tester.......

Papafox · Feb 14, 2015

Robert.Boston said:
I want to understand whether the home storage systems are diverting cells from the automotive division, or instead whether they are made of either/both:

New cells that don't quite reach spec, and/or

Cells reclaimed from used and/or defective car batteries.

If the bulk of the cells are 'seconds' of one variety or the other, then this business makes tremendous sense to start ASAP. For Tesla, the most expensive component of the storage system is effectively free.

The demand for storage systems will be high, and willing to pay premiums. I see three primary categories:

Cost-conscious customers looking to reduce their peak energy use. Remember that many customers pay a big portion of their power bills based on the highest 15-minute usage in a month, so managing those peaks can have a quick payback.

Environment-conscious customers who want the sure knowledge that their power usage isn't contributing to global warming (except on rare occasions of long, sunless stretches).

Off-grid applications. Not every house is on the grid, either because of extreme location (AudubonB) or choice. Tesla's compact storage option could enable more people to go off-grid without resorting to feats of amazing engineering DIY like wk057's rehab of a salvage MS 85kWh battery.

I like your way of looking at home storage if Tesla does indeed use cells that, for one reason or another, don't meet the grade for automotive purposes. For an analogy, look at how Intel sells processors. Some CPUs reach the high end of the performance spectrum, some don't. The processors that don't meet the highest standards are clocked down and sold as more-affordable processors. Such a solution would enable Tesla and Panasonic to take maximum advantage of cells that don't quite make the grade for inclusion in automotive batteries.

ItsNotAboutTheMoney · Feb 14, 2015

Robert.Boston said:
I want to understand whether the home storage systems are diverting cells from the automotive division, or instead whether they are made of either/both:

New cells that don't quite reach spec, and/or

Cells reclaimed from used and/or defective car batteries.

If the bulk of the cells are 'seconds' of one variety or the other, then this business makes tremendous sense to start ASAP. For Tesla, the most expensive component of the storage system is effectively free.

The demand for storage systems will be high, and willing to pay premiums. I see three primary categories:

Cost-conscious customers looking to reduce their peak energy use. Remember that many customers pay a big portion of their power bills based on the highest 15-minute usage in a month, so managing those peaks can have a quick payback.

Environment-conscious customers who want the sure knowledge that their power usage isn't contributing to global warming (except on rare occasions of long, sunless stretches).

Off-grid applications. Not every house is on the grid, either because of extreme location (AudubonB) or choice. Tesla's compact storage option could enable more people to go off-grid without resorting to feats of amazing engineering DIY like wk057's rehab of a salvage MS 85kWh battery.

...
...
...
Lots of buildings on islands with expensive electricity and huge renewable resource potential, where storage capability is the only thing stopping them from installing PV and the island getting to very high renewable percentage.

(Is there a way to get an ordered list to start at a number higher than 1?)

FredTMC · Feb 14, 2015

ItsNotAboutTheMoney said:
...

...

...

Lots of buildings on islands with expensive electricity and huge renewable resource potential, where storage capability is the only thing stopping them from installing PV and the island getting to very high renewable percentage.

(Is there a way to get an ordered list to start at a number higher than 1?)

Solarcity has had a beta program on the west cost for the Tesla home battery. It's 10KWh.

yes, as others have said, this would be great for cutting out peak demand charges even without a solar system. My peak hour charges with my EV electric plan are very expensive here in SoCal. In the summer I pay 0.44 cents per KWh between noon and 6pm. This would help. And, no, I don't charge my car during afternoon peak hours... But still...

that bring said, I think it's even better with a solar system.

ggr · Feb 14, 2015

FredTMC said:
Solarcity has had a beta program on the west cost for the Tesla home battery. It's 10KWh.

yes, as others have said, this would be great for cutting out peak demand charges even without a solar system. My peak hour charges with my EV electric plan are very expensive here in SoCal. In the summer I pay 0.44 cents per KWh between noon and 6pm. This would help. And, no, I don't charge my car during afternoon peak hours... But still...

that bring said, I think it's even better with a solar system.

I was looking to upgrade our current Solar City installation, after removing some dead pool heating, and looked at the beta of the battery backup. I was told that it didn't do any kind of load leveling, only power outage backup. But then, I had so much misinformation this time, I eventually canned the deal anyway.

Robert.Boston · Feb 15, 2015

Fwiw, wk057 is installing 170kWh of batteries (two salvaged 85kWh packs), hence the massive scale.

jhm · Feb 17, 2015

Thanks, but no thanks, Eskom. Tesla just killed your game
Interesting little article from South Africa, where apparently some people are feed up with the public utility, Eskom. So they are hopeful that the home grid storage product can give them options. I wonder how many people around the globle feel that they are not well served by their utilies and would be willing to pay for a quality home storage device. This product could have far reaching consequences.

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Home Storage speculation and predictions

Gerasimental

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flankspeed8

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Gerasimental

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Robert.Boston

Model S VIN P01536

uselesslogin

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mejojo

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BornToFly

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AudubonB

One can NOT induce accuracy via precision!

Papafox

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ItsNotAboutTheMoney

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FredTMC

Model S VIN #4925

ggr

Expert in Dunning-Kruger Effect!

Robert.Boston

Model S VIN P01536

jhm

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