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posted by janrinok on Friday March 10 2017, @09:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity dept.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/10/elon-musk-i-can-fix-south-australia-power-network-in-100-days-or-its-free

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?"


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:17PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:17PM (#477736) Journal

    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.
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