Tesla announces "Powerwall" batteries

[russ]

More than likely both the software and hardware will change (hopefully improve) over 10 years and depending on what those improvements are people may want to upgrade. A lease contract may make that hard to do. It all depends on how Tesla writes up the contract. They don't want to piss off new customers so maybe they will be happy to allow existing customers to upgrade for a minimal charge.

Remember the early solar contracts from Solar City and others? They were real screw jobs that improved rapidly when people started noticing.

The early adopters didn't care because they thought it was "green" however the other 99% forced the change by waiting.

[SunEagle]

It's hard to figure getting $2000 more utility out of the battery in years 10 and later. The computer in the Powerwall will then be ten years old. A new 7kwh replacement system may be less than $2K in 10 years.
So I'm not sure the lease is real. If it is, Tesla may be carrying the lease and offered it as a form of discounting. Or perhaps there is a charge for lease termination.

More than likely both the software and hardware will change (hopefully improve) over 10 years and depending on what those improvements are people may want to upgrade. A lease contract may make that hard to do. It all depends on how Tesla writes up the contract. They don't want to piss off new customers so maybe they will be happy to allow existing customers to upgrade for a minimal charge.

[donald]

IMO leasing "anything" usually ends up costing more in the long run.

It's hard to figure getting $2000 more utility out of the battery in years 10 and later. The computer in the Powerwall will then be ten years old. A new 7kwh replacement system may be less than $2K in 10 years.
So I'm not sure the lease is real. If it is, Tesla may be carrying the lease and offered it as a form of discounting. Or perhaps there is a charge for lease termination.

[Ian S]

Abuse is in the eye of the beholder, to some extent. A single post saying "You wouldn't know science if it bit you in the ass" was enough to get a rebuke from a moderator, but calling somebody "poor baby" or "crybaby" might not be. Ridicule isn't against the TOS, but a continued pattern of it might still be abusive.



Ah, fond memories of junior high school

You forgot "intentionally designed to mislead, disparage or embarrass others," which is also part of the rules. Terms like moron, fool, idiot, coomie, loon, etc. get thrown around here - without moderation - all the time by certain people. Other comments are deleted simply because they don't toe the official line. The rules need to be followed or changed IMHO. Glad to see Mike agrees.

[SunEagle]

....



Ah, fond memories of junior high school

They use to give out a fully charged 600V 30mfd cap to you guys in junior high school? Talk about shocking!!!

[SunEagle]

With my 3 grade math and hip pocket skills I figure the 7 kw costs about $1.90 a day to own for 10 years. If you cannot off set more than that you'll never see any value. If the warranty doesn't hold up or the Interest rates go up it's a bad investment.

Spending $1.90 a day doesn't seem like a lot. It is that 10 years life being the key to making the math work out for any ROI.

Of course you can easily spend 3 times as much as that $1.90 a day buying coffee from Starbucks.

[Ian S]

With my 3 grade math and hip pocket skills I figure the 7 kw costs about $1.90 a day to own for 10 years. If you cannot off set more than that you'll never see any value. If the warranty doesn't hold up or the Interest rates go up it's a bad investment.

With the existing demand rate structure under APS, that 7 kW unit should be able to shave weekday peaks by 3 kW which @15/kW each month yields a savings of about $1.50/day in the six month summer period. Savings in winter are less, of course but still significant. So, not quite there yet but what happens when demand rates are all the rage and net metering goes away?

[DanKegel]

(a) is libelous, defamatory, ... abusive, or threatening, or that promotes hate

Abuse is in the eye of the beholder, to some extent. A single post saying "You wouldn't know science if it bit you in the ass" was enough to get a rebuke from a moderator, but calling somebody "poor baby" or "crybaby" might not be. Ridicule isn't against the TOS, but a continued pattern of it might still be abusive.

So help the mods out, and give all the students a gold star and a charged 600V 30mfd cap.

Ah, fond memories of junior high school

[Willy T]

With my 3 grade math and hip pocket skills I figure the 7 kw costs about $1.90 a day to own for 10 years. If you cannot off set more than that you'll never see any value. If the warranty doesn't hold up or the Interest rates go up it's a bad investment.

[russ]

I doubt it's currently cost effective for backup unless you really hate ICE generators and probably quite marginal if at all for solar PV peak shaving/shifting. But it's close for the latter and Musk, being willing to take risks, is really betting on what happens in the near future as net metering is chipped away or outright eliminated and his huge factory dramatically reduces the cost of the batteries.

Anytime a VC type or money boy starts beating a drum look around carefully for why - he needs good news for the market.

[Ian S]

If you look at the bloodpath of panel manufacturers perhaps that is not a bad move.

You could be right but Tesla haters on Seeking Alpha have been shorting the stock since it was in the 30's. They tend to get a bit shrill and their articles often reflect that.

IMHO, Tesla's main interest is with the 7 kW battery and the 10 kW battery is just thrown in for good measure - it's really apparently the same battery pack with different control. I doubt it's currently cost effective for backup unless you really hate ICE generators and probably quite marginal if at all for solar PV peak shaving/shifting. But it's close for the latter and Musk, being willing to take risks, is really betting on what happens in the near future as net metering is chipped away or outright eliminated and his huge factory dramatically reduces the cost of the batteries.

[Sunking]

Green Mountain Power in vermont, as well as a texas company were announced.

http://www.greenmountainpower.com/

TX, now that is some funny stuff their Donald, I don't care who you are. In TX they pay roughly 7 to 8 cents per Kwh (that is delivered price) for the first 2500 Kwh in a month. After 2500 Kwh the rate drops to 6 to 7 cents per Kwh. In TX the more you use, the cheaper it gets. Commercial Industrial customers pay 4 to 5 cents per Kwh in TX.

I bet they will sell a lot of those batteries to Texans. It will be those damn transplanted Yankees and Hindus in Dallas I bet.

[Mike90250]

Well then Mike, I suggest the "moderators" change the rules of conduct which currently read as follows (emphasis added):

10.2 INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT. You will not submit, post, upload, transmit, display, communicate, or otherwise distribute any User Content that: (a) is libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, or threatening, or that promotes hate, violence or unlawful discrimination; (b) advocates or encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national, or foreign law or regulation; (c) is intentionally designed to mislead, disparage or embarrass others, or that reveals private information about others without their consent; (d) violates any of the prohibitions set forth in Section 10.3 below; or (e) advertises or otherwise solicits funds or is a solicitation for goods or services.

Zounds! Foiled again.

ok folks. time to be on your toes.
(a) is libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, or threatening, or that promotes hate, violence or unlawful discrimination;

if I have the time & bandwidth (just got a exceeded my 6gb limit and am on excess usage billing on my 4G hotspot) I'll start censoring bad stuff on new posts I see.
So help the mods out, and give all the students a gold star and a charged 600V 30mfd cap.

[Gilles]

New Solar Optical Module CHP

I'll guarantee you SMA and others will figure out that one really quick when it becomes main stream. No one will let the battery sit there untapped. Connected to any Hybrid Inverter will let you use it's power bi directionally with Grid support.

Inventors say they've created a solar panel like no other

By: Mallika Viegas - Sudbury Northern Life

| Apr 29, 2015 - 12:00 PM | 5


James Delsaut (left) and Gilles Leduc of Crystal Green Energy Corporation show off one of their solar panels, a design they say is unique in the industry. Photo by Mallika Viegas.

James Delsaut (left) and Gilles Leduc of Crystal Green Energy Corporation show off one of their solar panels, a design they say is unique in the industry. Photo by Mallika Viegas.













Print

Email



Researchers testing claims for light, heat capturing panels






Crystal Green Energy Corporation is a small company of three men, producing extraordinary things.

Lead technical and engineering expert Gilles Leduc, along with partners James Delsaut, a pharmacist, and Malik Amjad, an optical design enginer, say they have found a way of building highly efficient solar panels like no other.

While typical solar panels only gather light, Crystal Green's high-concentration photovoltaic thermal (HCPVT) systems not only concentrate sunlight on a compact panel for conversion to high-amperage electricity, but also extracts and stores heat — something no other solar panel on the planet can do, they say.

“When you play with magnifying glasses you have heat — you can burn things. I started there,” Leduc said. “There’s a lot of energy that no one’s using right now.”

Other solar panels have to dissipate heat because it can damage the solar cells, Leduc said. But Crystal Green Energy has found away around that.

"With our heat exchanger, we also capture the thermal energy and store it,” said Delsault. "It can then be used in your home for hot water, heating and, (if we) reverse that process, cooling.

The panels themselves are something like lightweight, mirrored bowls that are mounted on a sun-tracking system, allowing the panels to follow the sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset, which maximizes the amount of energy generated.

Crystal Green told NorthernLife.ca the thermal mirroring on their optics is 98-per-cent efficient, calling it a huge leap over the 80-per-cent efficiency of previous systems.

The designers say their "triple junction photovoltaic cell" is another innovation over the competition. They use fibre optics to channel the sun’s rays through a reflective Winston cone onto the photovoltaic cell, which converts light energy into electricity. Generated energy is stored using lithium ion batteries.

“We’re trying to gather all that energy as fast as we can, and pouring it into a backup system, so on the days the sun does not shine, you have those backup systems,” Leduc said.

Their design is so effective and efficient, Crystal Green said, a 1500-square-foot home can get all the power and heat it needs from only six of their 1.1-x-1.1-square-metre panels. The company said it's panels are are not only more compact that traditional solar panels, but are also 40-per-cent efficient compared to 15-per-cent for standard panels.

“Solar panels are a 30-year-old technology that can’t be adapted," Delsaut said. "We’re not comparing apples to apples anymore — this technology is way beyond (that)."

Leduc, Delsaut and Amjad spent the past four years perfecting the product in their small Sudbury office, self-funding the prototype design.

“We do this on the side," Delsaut said. "We still have our full time jobs. We just want to see the product succeed.”

So what’s next? The men behind Crystal Green Energy said they have partnered with researchers at the University of Sherbrooke, Ottawa University and Cambrian College for pre-testing certification and advanced development of the cells.

The company is launching an Indiegogo campaign next month to help put their patent-pending products into production.

To find out more, visit crystalgreenenergy.com or facebook.com/crystalgreenenergy for updates.

[SunEagle]

There are other installers announced besides solar city.
The Powerwall isn't going to be hackable. But similar systems will fulfill different requirements.
While Mr. Negativity was quick to point out the $7000 installed purchase price, the lease is more interesting:

For a 10 kilowatt-hour system, customers can prepay $5,000 for a nine-year lease, which includes installation, a maintenance agreement, the electrical inverter and control systems.

Few people that understand technology are going to want the system for more than nine years. I certainly wouldn't pay an extra $2K to own it. If leasing price is similar for the 7kwh high cycle units, a 21kwh off grid lease might be $1500 a year.

What percent of off grid owners would pay $1500/year for a 21kwh battery system lease?

IMO leasing "anything" usually ends up costing more in the long run. It is an easy way to get people who do not have any money to purchase something to get into a situation that they really can't afford in the first place.

We will have to see what Tesla does to bring down the price of their batteries after they get their mega factory running. My guess is that they will have some big loans to repay first so the unit cost may take a while to come down.