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All true, showing that utility-scale battery banks like South Australia's Hornsdale Power Reserve (which on startup gutted the regional consumer-abusing market makers for ancillary services) complement pumped hydro. Hornsdale, for example, can respond a hundred times faster than hydropower to...

This article grabs attention using Tesla in the headline, but is really about the challenges of introducing tech in our own Third World territory. On Puerto Rico’s 'Forgotten Island,' Tesla's Busted Solar Panels Tell A Cautionary Tale

"...woefully unscalable..." Mr. Petersen uses "unscalable" incorrectly here, but has a point on the environmental constraints upon new on-river reservoirs. He is however forgetting some other, less-impacting options which have been licensed by FERC, or are proposed: use of surface and subsurface...

My point was that large PSPs in California are all of that 1960s-1970s vintage. There have been no new >50MW projects since the two paired to their nuclear plants, and those of the State Water Project that recover energy for water conveyance. Implementing the proposed portfolio of renewable...

It is taking a very long time for pumped hydro to make headway. Twelve years have passed since the great surge in project planning and licensing, and I don't recall a single completed project of more than nominal capacity. Those slated for California died because there is no rate mechanism to...

This has got to be a record-setting piece of troll work.

Ok, the new construction forms from Tesla can't be uploaded here because the MS Excel and MS Word extensions are not allowed. Here are screenshots of the Intake form, and to submit use data so Tesla can model the future system. For the purpose of including a Powerwall in the DESIGN of a new...

Aye-yuh. It is a sad state of affairs when the private sector generates longer delays than public agencies. Of course, the electric utilities have a profit motive to drag their feet. I just hope Tesla ups their game soon, because their product and pricing leads the market, but the market is...

Powerwall sales staff seems entirely focused upon retrofits. My experience is a woeful tale. It took me 22 months to track down the team within Design & Engineering (D&E) that deals with integrating Powerwall installation requirements with the design phase of new home construction. I paid my...

Sure I would. But that option would be either a term of the original contract, or a unilateral boon offered by the seller. Amazon's preorder offer explicitly assures minimum price. No auto contract I know of does that. Expecting a seller to guarantee you the best possible outcome? On what...

I don't have dog in this one, yet. I am waiting for delivery and installation of two Powerwalls before buying my next car. It will be Model 3, unless someone produces a better alternative. Consider that the kernel of this debate is a very reasonable desire to obtain maximum financial...

Diamond Mountain Casino & Hotel is outside town, and may be short on parking, but maybe?

Troll-of-the-month nomination!

On Monday, ABC Channel 7 reported that the victim's brother stated: "...7-10 times the car would swivel toward that same exact barrier during auto-pilot. Walter took it into dealership addressing the issue, but they couldn't duplicate it there." Not to speak ill of the dead, but if that is...

Wonderful homage to Tesla. But what are the toolboxes for? Will you keep your ICE car? :-)

If you read (and take seriously) Gretchen Bakke's book "The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future", you will appreciate that grid outages are likely to be ever more frequent until investor-owned utilities have stronger incentives to invest in their distribution systems...

I meant: Your annualized first cost WON'T BE OFFSET BY your reduced gas bill."

Buying a heat pump is a great solution if your existing A/C and furnace are worn out, because you'll also get higher efficiency than from your 15- to 20-year-old units. Otherwise, the high first cost won't offset your reduced gas bill. Even then, the lower cost per btu of gas heat may make it a...

The Duck Curve is a problem for CAISO and the generating side of the deregulated utilities. Power prices go negative day after day from Spring to Fall, when must-buy solar output peaks. California greatly increased SGIP battery incentives but it is an inside game, since the Powerwall etc...

Prepper mocker?

Hear, hear!

Verifying that is the crux, for my proposed application. I would rather have the capability to restart the solar to meet minimum daytime demands and recharge the Powerwall for night operation than have to depend solely on the LP genset for all use after the first depletion during grid loss...

Ah, but will the associated batteries allow my solar to operate during grid loss, as the Powerwall 2 would? It seems like, at present, I can't have my cake (off-grid solar) and eat it too (get reliable, full battery recharge) -- at least not for $5500, plus installation.

I'm glad I found this very timely discussion. We are finalizing plans for a middle-sized remote home with 7kW on a solar carport, and a Powerwall 2 to permit us to weather frequent and sometimes lengthy grid outrages. But the location (with a high forested horizon and frequent clouds) limits...