This is big news! You measure your ability to live sustainably with what the Earth provides as “Net Zero” – defined as 100% plus storage. The two most difficult aspects of sustainability to store are food and electricity. The Tesla Powerwall batteries look like they’ve changed the electricity storage “game.”
Gas-powered cars have clung to refill range as a saving grace. But the Tesla car has a range equal to that of most gas cars, and they’ve gone coast-to-coast using recharging stations that are rapidly increasing in frequency. Now they have batteries for home use, which could give you more reliable power for less money and freedom from the electric utility company … with no emissions that impair air quality.
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SolarCity will incorporate Tesla
Powerwall batteries in its
‘turnkey’ solar systems
Michael Graham Richard (@Michael_GR)
May 1, 2015
Apparently it wasn’t just empty talk when Elon Musk and his cousin Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity, said that …
every SolarCity system will come
with batteries from Tesla’s Gigafactory“.
Tesla’s new Powerwall home battery has barely been announced and SolarCity is already saying that it will offer it as part of its ‘turnkey’ system, along with solar panels and control systems.
In a blog post, Peter Rive, SolarCity’s CTO, reiterated the vision that storage would soon become a default component of his systems:
“Using Tesla’s suite of batteries for homes and businesses,
SolarCity’s fully-installed battery and solar system costs
are one-third of what they were a year ago. We expect costs
to continue to decline as manufacturing scales, and over
the next 5-10 years, these cost reductions will make it feasible
to deploy a battery by default with all of our solar power systems.”
While SolarCity will also offer battery storage to its commercial and utility customers, it’s the residential option that interests us most (sorry, corporate TreeHugger readers — we love you too!). The general idea is pretty simple. During the day, solar panels on a house will often produce excess energy. This can be stored in the Tesla Powerwall battery for use as night.
This further reduces the need to draw power from the grid, and that’s good, because the power from a house’s solar panels is clean and has a marginal cost that is zero, so the more you use, especially at peak time in the evening, the better.
The battery also provides a backup during power outages, potentially replacing noisy and dirty diesel generators.
SolarCity is currently working on building a ‘solar gigafactory’ in New York state to produce its own high-efficiency, low-cost solar panels, using technology from Silevo, a solar manufacturer that it recently acquired. With Tesla working on its side to reduce the battery costs with its own gigafactory in Nevada, the total system cost of residential solar isn’t about to stop going lower.
Rive also writes:
“Batteries distributed at homes across a region can lower
the costs of maintaining the grid and new market structures
designed to take full advantage of this benefit appear likely
in several states. […] I believe the best grid design is one
in which utilities embrace distributed energy resources.
“However, when utilities and regulators impose solar-specific
charges on their customers, or burden homeowners with
unduly long system interconnection delays, utilities risk mass
customer defection from the grid via solar battery systems.”
A few years ago everybody was talking about “smart grids”. We might be hearing less about them now, but they are becoming reality with this kind of stuff. It’s possible to imagine a future where most roofs everywhere have solar panels, and most buildings have some batteries tucked in some corner, and most of the energy we use comes from clean, renewable sources.
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What’s most exciting for me is: The Powerwall batteries are actually available, now.
It’s not a forecast of some future product. True, when their huge battery giga-factory is complete in a couple of years, the price will likely drop – as it has been doing. And they’re bound to keep refining their product – as they have been doing. But …
The future is now!
The last lot in our little Garden Atrium sustainable community is under construction. We’ve pushed the envelope a bit in each succeeding Garden Atrium home. The last three are off-grid for water. They enjoy a reliable supply of chemical-free water that’s better than what you can buy at the store. And they have no water bill.
We’re now planning to use these Powerwall batteries to go completely off grid on electricity for this final home. Statistics show that power outages have been increasing and, with increasing storm severity, are likely to continue increasing. Our system of photovoltaic panels with battery-back up is more reliable. Each day, the sun shines … regardless.
Finally, a more person reason …
Utilities are for-profit companies. They’re allowed to have a monopoly in the public interest, with a regulatory commission governing their practices and rates. However, I’ve experienced a rate boost of nearly $20 a month just for the privilege of being hooked up to natural gas. $350/year just for gas line maintenance? And repeated inquiries to the utility commission have gone unanswered.
So – we went off-grid on natural gas, using the new induction electric cook tops and photovoltaic power; quality cook tops with no bill. Same with water. Same with local driving. As we go off-grid on each aspect of our needs, in addition to better quality at less cost, I feel a greater sense of freedom. And …
I know what we’re doing will not deplete the Earth’s resources or hinder our air quality one iota.
