Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of electric car giant Tesla, has thrown down a challenge to the South Australian and federal governments, saying he can solve the state's energy woes within 100 days – or he'll deliver the 100MW battery storage system for free.
On Thursday, Lyndon Rive, Tesla's vice-president for energy products, told the AFR the company could install the 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage that would be required to prevent the power shortages that have been causing price spikes and blackouts in the state.
Thanks to stepped-up production out of Tesla's new Gigafactory in Nevada, he said it could be achieved within 100 days.
Mike Cannon-Brookes, the Australian co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Atlassian, on Friday tweeted Elon Musk, asking if Tesla was serious about being able to install the capacity.
Musk replied that the company could do it in 100 days of the contract being signed, or else provide it free, adding: "That serious enough for you?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday March 10 2017, @09:53PM (11 children)
Though the article is sloppy by using MWh and MW interchangeably.
The article the article references is not sloppy in that manner, but also does not list the actual capacity in MW. Apparently a 1600MW plant is being closed down. 300MWh over 4 hours is only 75MW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @10:12PM
Isn't that just 1.6 jigawatts?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 10 2017, @10:16PM
> 300MWh over 4 hours is only 75MW.
It could be 100MW peak output, 75MW continuous over 4 hours, or even 100MW initial, sloping down to 50 or less in the last minutes of the 4 hours...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 10 2017, @11:02PM
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=19038 [soylentnews.org]
I duped
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 10 2017, @11:03PM
Part of the confusion could stem from a tweet by Mike Cannon-Brookes that uses MW instead of MWh.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday March 10 2017, @11:25PM (6 children)
One of the commentors under TFA has an interesting point:
Kickthismobout
I kind of believe it. We already pay more for transmission than generation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:33AM
I believe the numbers too.
But I wish there was a link to the actual report.
It seems like it is only available to paying customers of the Deutsche Bank.
Here's confirmation though:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/carbon-crash-solar-dawn-deutsche-bank-on-why-solar-has-already-won-51105/ [reneweconomy.com.au]
I'm not sure that's necessarily good news for Tesla's battery and solar operations. Rapid price commodization can crush early entrants who have amortized debt that companies entering after the price crash don't have. In a sense its better for a company like Tesla to keep the price reductions from happening too quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:51AM (4 children)
Then why is the electricity in Germany, with lots of renewables, so expensive? Average cost to consumers is 32 cents / kWh (US).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:17PM
Because of the way the system has set up, the consumer prices go up when the market prices go down.
The way this works is as follows: The government gave guarantees for the prices you get for renewable electricity, based on what it cost to produce back then (it wasn't yet competitive on its own). This was achieved not by setting a fixed price on the power, but by making the price two-component: First, the actual price they get for the electricity, as determined on the market. And second, a component that tops up that price to the guaranteed one. However that second component is paid for only by the normal consumers and small companies, not by the big industry. Which means that when the production price goes down, the big industry gets the advantage, but the consumers pay the difference between true and guaranteed price not only for the electricity they themselves consume, but in addition for the renewable electricity those big companies buy.
So for understanding how this works, let's say for simplicity the production and consumption of renewable electricity is constant. Now assume the market price halves. Due to the guaranteed price for the producers, this doesn't affect the money they receive. But the big companies who only have to pay the market price now only have pay half as much. The difference has to be paid for by the normal consumers, whose electricity price rises accordingly.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:01PM (2 children)
Why is the electricity in New York, with so much nuclear and coal and natural gas, so expensive at 35 cents/kwh?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @06:20PM
And organized crime/grovelment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @10:14PM
Revolving-door regulators?
AKA "protectors" protecting their actual constituents (corporations and their profits).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]