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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: 1) by gishzida on Friday May 01 2015, @08:04PM

    by gishzida (2870) on Friday May 01 2015, @08:04PM (#177592) Journal

    I think you will find that the appropriate epitaph is the same one that all Hegemonic Powers have: Absolute Greed Corrupts, and Destroys Absolutely.

    Our problems are not wrought by "greens" or "progressives" or even a liberal like myself... our problems are brought about by corporate greed-- Unnecessary wars and "too big to fail" deregulation of financial institutions are just the tip of the iceberg. Why do we need those wars? Because that's "bread and butter" for the militarists and the weapons makers. Why did we deregulate the financial industry? Not because of consumers... but because the vulture capitalists are always seeking "big profits". Who pays the bill for these things? The middle class.

    OTOH, most consumer power is provided by "regulated monopolies" -- Power companies that do not want any form of competition. Considering your apparent alternative energy stance, does that make you a proponent of corporate monopolies and their ability to squelch end user interest in cutting their energy bill? Or are you one of those "free market Darwinists" who believe that big corporations are much more benign that "big government"?

    I live in a state that is big friends with "big power" and for the most part its regulations and incentives are not alternative energy friendly... Can you guess who's running the state house? Why of course-- Republicans. "Conservation of capital" is a big thing with corporations... and the best way to conserve capital is to have a monopoly... like the Machines' power monopoly of the "copper tops" in The Matrix, consumers have only one purpose--- to generate corporate profits and support an elite that continues to distance itself from "social responsibility".

    The way I see it is: consumer incentives are a way to force the Monopolists to innovate or die. The incentives allow the middle class to participate in both "capital conservation' [i.e. money saving] and encourage innovation. They nurture new, local industries since the vulture capitalist have exported most of our industrial production. If we're going to have a "free market" that market should not be a market that is more free for the entrenched players than those who are trying to innovate. Like Mr. Musk or not, he *is* trying to do things in markets that the entrenched players keep trying to shut him out... And that is the indication that there is something "wrong" with those markets. The worst thing for the consumer would be if Tesla got bought out by one of the corporate dinosaurs.