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from the re-energizing-the-power-industry dept.
Tesla's Megapack Battery is Big Enough to Help Grids Handle Peak Demand:
Tesla announced a new massive battery today called Megapack that could replace so-called "peaker" power plants, which provide energy when a local electrical grid gets overloaded. Tesla says that Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) will deploy several Megapacks at Moss Landing on Monterrey Bay in California, which is one of four locations where the California utility plans to install more cost-effective energy storage solutions.
Each Megapack can store up to 3 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy at a time, and it's possible to string enough Megapacks together to create a battery with more than 1 GWh of energy storage, Tesla says. The company says this would be enough energy to power "every home in San Francisco for six hours." Telsa will deliver the Megapacks fully assembled, and they include "battery modules, bi-directional inverters, a thermal management system, an AC main breaker and controls." Tesla says the Megapack takes up 40 percent less space, requires a tenth of the parts to build, and can be assembled 10 times as fast as alternative energy storage solutions.
Also at cnet.
Would also have the benefit of essentially instant activation versus peaker plants which take some amount of time to spin up, even if kept warmed up and idling.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday August 01 2019, @12:28AM (2 children)
The price for it will be similar to what we pay now for the whole electricity consumption.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 02 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
Why would you assume that? It would cost a lot less to provide, and even a grid monopoly would still be in competition with the much more competitive battery industry.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 03 2019, @01:22AM
Let's take an extreme example. Hover dam will cost us roughly the same no matter how much electricity we get from it. All other, shall I call them classic, ways of getting electricity are very similar to this once all the costs are factored in, including, again for example, a cleaning costs of abandoned coal station, which will be more than building it. Note that the coal station clean up will not be done by the utility who owned it. Similar to mining industry the utility in question will simply go under and all the costs will come from taxes.
I am all for the new and green energy, but the way to get there is not what happens now.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.