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posted by takyon on Friday May 01 2015, @04:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the big-buzz dept.

Tesla has announced a consumer-grade home battery named "Powerwall" that will be available in 2 sizes. The battery can recharge at night when electricity rates are low, and then run your house during the day. It is designed for solar charging, and can return power back to the grid or enable autonomous, off-the-grid living.

Some think that this Tesla technology may be the saving grace for the power grid due to home generation and back-flow issues. There have been previous anouncements from other companies of microgrids which seem to aim for close to the same market, and it is not yet clear how the Powerwall might stack up against these competitors.

The first Tesla Energy product is 'Powerwall Home Battery,' a stationary battery that can power a household without requiring the grid. The battery is rechargeable lithium-ion — it uses Tesla's existing battery tech — and can be fixed to a wall, removing much of the existing complexity around using a local power source.

"The issue with existing batteries is that they suck," Musk said in a press conference announcing Tesla Energy. "They are expensive, unreliable and bad in every way."

Tesla's solution, he said, is different.

For one thing, the company's batteries cost $3,500 for 10kWh and $3,000 for 7kWh — add your snarky Apple Watch price comparison here. They are open for pre-orders in the U.S. now; the first orders will be dispatched "in late summer."

Like regular batteries, they can be used together — up to nine can be stacked up together to create a strong and reliable power source. Musk said he believes they can help people in emerging markets or remote locations 'leapfrog' the need for existing power systems, in a similar way that mobile phones have become more important than landlines in remote parts of the world.

microtodd says: Hook it up to some solar panels and you could be 100% off the grid. I know products like this already exist but maybe this is the step from a hobbyist market to a Home Depot consumerist market. I bet some Soylenters out there have already DIYd this themselves at home. Does this look feasible and interesting?

Too bad it's basically illegal to live off the grid.

CoolHand says: Obviously, modern civilization is not yet fully prepared for the post-fossil fuel era, but news like this can at least give some hope that there are people out there working to prepare us, and in that way, we may be just a little bit closer to being ready.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by TrumpetPower! on Friday May 01 2015, @05:36PM

    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Friday May 01 2015, @05:36PM (#177530) Homepage

    Also, lead-acid batteries are notorious for going tits-up after just a few years. A lead-acid battery that costs $5000 and needs to be replaced after five years is a lot more expensive than a lithium battery that costs $15,000 but's still going strong at 80% original capacity even after you've paid off the 30-year mortgage.

    (And, remember: lithium only has a short lifespan if you beat the shit out of it. Keep the temperature under control and be gentle with the charging and discharging -- as would be the case in a properly-sized home system -- and it'll last nearly forever with an almost-negligible gradual decline in capacity.)

    b&

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday May 01 2015, @10:09PM

    by frojack (1554) on Friday May 01 2015, @10:09PM (#177643) Journal

    Not ONLY do they go titsup in a short period, but they do so sometimes cell by cell, or battery by battery, which ends up with certain cells or batteries being over-driven by the charger, and falling completely out when being discharged, leaving you with uncertain voltage.
    They are heavy, (and you are always schlepping spares and replacements, de-gas hydrogen, and because you have to mess with them often for replacement, you are always one dropped wrench from a rude surprise.

    You are in constant maintenance mode with a bank of Lead-acid. Its way beyond Joe Sixpack, so only the geeky folks can manage it.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by TrumpetPower! on Friday May 01 2015, @11:05PM

      by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Friday May 01 2015, @11:05PM (#177664) Homepage

      The single dead cell is a potential failure mode with any multi-cell battery regardless of chemistry...and it's the job of the battery management system to detect and isolate such cells and alert the user to the need for maintenance. But if you're going with lead acid, "minimal capital investment" is likely your financial strategy, which means you may well forego the BMS entirely.

      ...and, if you do that, you might not even bother balancing the cells initially, let alone keep them in balance, which just further minimizes capacity and shortens life.

      There's probably still a great deal to be said for Edison-style nickel-iron batteries for home use...but they'd never have a prayer in mobile applications and it's cars where the economies of scale are coming into play initially. Lithium probably meets the 80/20 rule in a purely technical comparison with nickel-iron, especially with a quality BMS that won't let you damage the batteries...and lithium is already a lot cheaper up front than nickel-iron.

      b&

      b&

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