So you guys saw this? Tesla Motors, as a development in their car-battery technology I am assuming, says they are going to be offering a ‘plug-n-play’ battery that will be suitable for home use. Now, you and I both know that ‘home use’ means a few lights, some entertainment devices, and other small-draw items, because you ain’t running your refrigerator, freezer, well-pump, furnace blower, and hot water heater off a battery small enough to hang on your wall. Oh, you could run a household like that off of batteries but it would be a battery (or battery-pack) the size of a cargo container.
Really, this is a brilliant move for Tesla if they pull it off. The car side of their business is obviously heavily invested in battery technology, so if they develop an uber-battery it would only make sense to put out out into other, non-auto markets as well. The market for $200K $100k electric cars is probably pretty small compared to the market for $3500 batteries that, ideally, work better than any existing backup battery or off-grid-cabin battery.
My own efforts as of late are still in the DIY/beginning-hobbyist stage. I’m planning out a small battery system to maintain a charge off of household current when the power is on, and to be used for DC applications (lights, radio, battery charging, security system) when the power goes out. But thats a much longer post (or, really, couple of posts).
In a happy little world, I’d have something like one of these batteries up at my very-attractive, yet heavily-reinforced concrete off-grid Beta Site. The world would convulse into spasms of chaos, I’d pack up and head to my little quiet bastion of security, and patiently wait for things to calm down…all the while enjoying LED lighting, radio communications, laptop, and security surveillance. Ah, the great American (survivalist’s) dream.
Go read some Heinlein sometime, or just Wiki it, and look up “Shipstone”. In the books, the shipstone was a revolutionary technology that greatly improved batteries. Or, as the book says, “To call a Shipstone an improved storage battery would be to call an atom bomb an improved firecracker.” In the book, shipstones didnt create power, they simply acted as containers for it. And you could stuff a lot of power into one. Every so often someone comes up with some ideas in battery technology that looks similar to Heinlein’s fictional supercapacitor. About eight years ago the big thing was ‘nanowire‘ technology that would, allegedly, increase a lithium-ion batteries output by 10x. Haven’t read much about it since then.
Anyway, if Tesla has made any strides in the battery arena, I think it would be a classic example of a business having a small branch or division that was ancillary to their main business become more profitable than the main business. Serendipity.
Tesla probably always was a battery company rather than a car company, it is in their battery tech that they have made the huge leaps compared to everybody else.
For me, a 10 KWH powewall battery would run my apartment for probably 3-4 days. For a Single family house with a wood furnace it would probably run it for 2-4 days depending on the number of occupants and how much you use your dishwasher and washing machine (and assuming you dont run an AC). The uses for the Powerwall are many. Paired to a good sized solar panel it can provide power through a couple of nights and cloudy days. On their own they can provide uninterrupted power through scheduled blackouts in a power rationing scenario, or uninterrupted power for a couple of days in an unscheduled blackout. It is also better to run your generator on a high load to charge the battery bank for six hours every 2-10 days depending on how severely you ration your power, than to run it on a low load 2-4 times a day, three hours at a time to try and cool down your fridge and freezers.
At a seminar I attended a year or so ago a young man gave his power set up that he uses at his own off-grid home. He prefaced the talk with a confession and a truth, you cannot run a modern AC grid wired home off-grid for any sustainable amount of time. You have to change your lifestyle and a few of your appliances to make it work.
He and his fiancee run total solar at his home, I pressed him why no wind power and he responded that the geography of the mountains around him made it pointless. He said that if he had a week of cloudy weather and/or his battery bank got to 50% he fired up a 4k genny for 3-4 hrs and topped the bank off. I thought to myself here is another tale of large racks of batteries, the cash register in my head going “KaChing, KaChing” blah blah blah. I was stunned when he said he ran a single battery, the battery from an electric forklift. I made perfect sense; industrial usage, used for heavy loads, decently fast recharging and dollar for dollar cheaper per amp/h than the specialized solar batteries.
Granted they are not cheap ($1200-$4000 depending on models) but I have shifted my thoughts (and savings) towards this goal.
I read the Tesla articles and thought back to that conference and I think this is a great idea. Change a few appliances (more efficient or even DC refers at the top of the list), a few personal practices (stop using the clothes dryer, more ceiling fans) and LED lighting could last for a long time on even a 1 or 2 kilowatt array.
Anyway just a thought…
Yeah, its a bit foolish to think youre going to have the same quality of life with the same appliances running when you switch over to a system like that. I try to keep mu goal as simple as possible. LED lights, radio, battery charge, and security cams…all 12v.
One of the unsung benefits of not using the clothes dryer is that your clothes will last a LOT longer. (This cost savings may pay for toys or supplies, although it can be hard to quantify it). What I see is that clothes actually wear out, not fall apart. Think about the old clothing styles that had reinforcing patches at high wear areas, like elbows, cuffs, and collar linings. Quite often they were leather. You’ll find out why if you stop drying your clothes.
I still dry my underclothing items (lack of hanging space, mostly), but collared shirts and pants get hung to dry. Same for vests and jackets, sweaters, pretty much all outerwear.
Women might not care about longevity of clothing, since style is the main factor, and that changes too quickly for most clothing to wear out. YMMV.
have you seen those little pocket sized jump starters? somebody made a quantum leap, reasons that it would apply to other areas. i think the tesla battery is a good concept considering that the power grid will soon achieve third world status and one day might have roving shutdowns like other countries do now. it will be nice to have a backup that doesn’t require extra fuel. my system is too small for that role now, just lights and small loads, but i’m aiming to bump it up this summer. i just found out i have my battery bank hooked up wrong for best performance. learn something new every day.
What did you do wrong?
well, i ran the input charge in one end of my battery bank and ran the output out the other end. that’s the way i saw it elsewhere. but now i find that the setup is charging the first battery to max and the next ones less and less, while the discharge is coming off the last battery keeping it in poor shape. i have 4 105 amp deep cycles in a row so it should run what little i have on it indef with a little sun but i found it not keeping up over the long haul when the derecho hit two summers ago. i also found out my 90 watt panel was putting out plenty of watts but very low amps. i was essentially running off more power than the panels could put back. i’m going to re-wire it and switch out the panels for one 300 watt and add others as money permit but the 0ne 300 would make do. i just run leds, laptop, small tv and sat box, charger, and 12 v water pumps as needed. have gens to run the big stuff.
One way that I’ve always looked at this is that the purpose of battery is srore energy. (duh!)
However, if our gosl is store surplus energy for later retrieval, I’ve often wondered if there might not be a better and more practical way of doing so.
Example: If you have lots of solar panes, they generate energy even when your not using any. The idea is to store the energy for later use.
Sometimes I think it would be better to have the surplus energy used to say, pump water from a well into a pond at an elevation. The enrgy is stored as water in the pond and when needed it flows down hill into a small turbine to generate on demand.
I saw them, and I will be keeping an eye on them….
One of our goals, when we put in our solar panels, was to eventually put in a battery backup system to power the house in place of a gas powered genny when we have a power outage. Being able to use our solar power for a larger portion of the day in normal usage would qualify as a plus. But normal battery backup systems are horridly expensive and a PIA to set up and take up space that I’d rather use for other things. THIS on the other hand has huge potential……
This looks better than it is. The battery operates at 350 VDC to 450 VDC. Anyone make a 500 VDC solar cell to charge it? They are made to charge off of 220 VAC Edison power. Transformer the 220 to 480 VAC to a high voltage charger. We are talking about industrial machinery voltages. The things lightning bolts are made of.
High voltage DC is very dangerous if you touch it your mussels will contract and you can’t let go.
The inverter would have to be high voltage and transformer it down to 220 VAC to feed a normal house panel board. Non of this is normal off grid do it your self stuff. Do you work on the Edison line to your house? That’s only 220 VAC. The battery direct lines do not have an off switch only way to shut it off is discharge the battery. If it’s through you it will be the last thing you ever do at that voltage.
A small point Tesla Motors does not make money selling cars or making batteries. They make lots of money selling carbon credits to fools to make them feel good. Green and all of that.
There is a reason off grid storage systems max out at around 48 VDC. It wont kill you if you touching it.
NurseDaddy,
Your idea will work if you have enough head to run the generator and it could pressurize your home water system no pumps needed. It won’t discharge if it don’t leak. The rain will help recharge it.
Best regards,
Roadie
The shock hazard above 50VDC is very real. (Under the right conditions though, it takes a LOT less than that to kill you.) You also have to contend with arc-flash hazards though. Oh, and Tesla is using Lithium-Ion cells which have the habit of rapidly disassembling if something goes wrong.
I work for a battery manufacturer, and I deal with these sorts of voltages, and at higher current levels than this will produce. It’s not something to play around with. That being said, I’ll bet these sell like hotcakes and I’ll bet again that you start seeing more of these battery systems in the 250v-450v range. Power (Watts) is equal to voltage x current. You size your wire to carry the current so if you run higher voltages, you can produce a cheaper product because everything can be smaller. It’s the same reason the electric company distributes at much higher voltages and then steps down through a transformer to make the drop to your house. It’s cheaper.
A friend shares a driveway with two other McMansions. Both of those neighbors have Tesla cars as second/third vehicles. Lots more in that real estate development. (My friend prefers his aircooled Porsche Carrera as a third vehicle.) Of course, this is Silicon Valley territory. I always see at least one Tesla on the freeway, every time I go somewhere.
Got a buddy who works at Tesla Motors. He is working 60 hr weeks.
I reviewed the certification for the battery’s.
“NRTL listed to UL standards” this is an OSHA standard for industrial and commercial work sites and workers safety. To UL standards does not mean it is UL approved. I question if your home owners insurance would cover you or local codes would approve this in some areas.
I could not find what standards they comply to but at 450 VDC and around 25 amps it could get into the 8 calorie high voltage suit. http://www.licensedelectrician.com/Store/OE/8CAL-PPE-Kit.htm take a look. This is what a trained electrician would wear.
FLJet, says ” Oh, and Tesla is using Lithium-Ion cells which have the habit of rapidly disassembling if something goes wrong.” good point I have seen video of their cars blowing up and burning.
It is my experience that if you keep the high current circuits short and convert with the inverter close to the batteries you can do most of your transmissions to your buildings with 220 VAC or 110 VAC. Keeping the large size conductors short reducing your cost of installing an off grid system.
Another question I have and have not been able to find a good answer is what is the cost and who is responsible for the proper disposal of the Lithium-ion battery when its life cycle is over?
This is not a lead cell hazardous waste it is a “Toxic” waste. At least lead cells get recycled into bullets. A recycling process that works for me. I guess that makes me green. lol
Best regards,
Roadie
Interestingly, here’s some more soggy linen to throw on the party:
http://www.thegwpf.com/oops-teslas-green-battery-doesnt-actually-work-that-well-with-solar/
Interesting the 10 KWH is only good for 2 KWH and the equivalent generator is $3700 compared to $45,000 what a deal. Should make lots of carbon credits for sale. So its a designer product for the socially consciences individual with no actual practical use. Sounds like its government funded wait it is. lol
The best part is you lease them not buy them that does take care of the recycling issue they aren’t yours. You may not be able to own them with out certification for operating a system with toxic materials.
If it sounds to good to be true.
Best regards,
Roadie