Saturday, May 2, 2015

Michael McElfresh — Tesla batteries: just the beginning of how technology will transform the electric grid

The spread of cost-effective batteries will fundamentally change the way the electric grid operates. Combined with other innovations, batteries in homes and businesses will transform how people and businesses treat electricity.
Along the way, these batteries will improve the efficiency and reliability of the grid overall.
The Conversation
Tesla batteries: just the beginning of how technology will transform the electric grid
Michael McElfresh | Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at Santa Clara University

8 comments:

Dan Lynch said...

Meh, the Tesla battery has been over hyped.

Deep cycle batteries have long been available for off-the-grid use. For the price of a Tesla battery, you can buy a lot of conventional batteries. It's not clear what advantage the Tesla battery offers?

If you are on the grid, it would make more sense for the utility to take care of the storage. That storage infrastructure doesn't necessarily exist now, leading to conflicts between homeowners and utilities, but there's no technical reason it couldn't exit.

NeilW said...

"It's not clear what advantage the Tesla battery offers?"

Energy density. In space terms the Tesla batteries are much more dense than lead acid batteries used in conventional UPS and will have less issues. Hence why they're used in cars.

If the utility stores then you still have the problem of grid transmission losses.

Additionally running everything via a UPS smooths the power feed so you can control the voltage - easing the stress on motors and induction devices. And it can provide the reactive power top up for motors so the grid doesn't have to.

Plus of course the main benefit of a UPS - uninterruptible power supply.

Dan Lynch said...

Yes, but density is not a big deal for home use.

Transmission losses are trivial compared to all the other inefficiencies.

Agree that UPS is very desirable, but you pay for it. You can buy a Honda generator for far less than the price of a Tesla UPS system.

My takeaway is that Tesla is tooling up to manufacture these batteries for cars so he might as well market the batteries for home use, too. But it's hardly a breakthrough.

Tesla was guaranteeing his batteries for 8 years, last I heard. You can get industrial grade conventional batteries that last 10 - 15 years, though like the Tesla, they are not cheap. Hence for people who are already on the grid, it will make sense to stay on the grid.

I'm on the grid but would love to have solar to offset my utility bill and UPS to keep me online during outages. The technology is available, the problem is money.

Tom Hickey said...

Low cost local UPS is a huge plus for most of the developing world in comparison with the developed world, which is already electrified. Many countries just don't have a functional national grid and what grid there is only serves highly urbanized and industrialized areas, in some cases only intermittently. Daily power shortages are expected. People speak in terms of how many hours of power they had instead of taking electricity on demand for granted.

Local power generation and storage is a great leap forward for these countries and this is where the technological innovation will really count, both positively in scaling electrification and also obviating the negative externalities associated with centralized grids-power plants.

Conversely, developed countries are going to have to take a step backward and reduce power consumption both through conservation and scaling higher efficiency motors and appliances. People living off the grid now in the US, to take advantage of real estate in desirable but rather unaccessible areas live quite well using much less power. However, they pay a premium both for decentralizing power and more advanced technology, for example, in refrigeration, which people in developed countries have come to take for granted.

I was talking to a friend who is an architect in a large US city some years ago and he was saying that not only is the technology now available for energy self-sufficiency in design and construction of office and buildings and apartment complexes, but that it is beginning to take over. I was staying in such an apartment complex at the time, and energy was included in the monthly, which was below the going rate because the project was subsidized.

Finally developed countries are taking negative externalities more seriously, although not seriously enough yet. But developing countries could go to decentralized power and largely avoid replicating that environmentally damaging cycle of development.

Ryan Harris said...

Because of the importance of electricity, we created public utility commissions to make regulated pricing that subsidizes the prices for the poor at the expense of large and rich consumers of power and ensures producers of electricity don't gouge the smaller and less profitable customers. We also created reliability regulators to ensure power producers always cooperate and don't rig markets to only provide electricity when high prices justify generation. My concern is that off-grid use is really just another political attempt by the elites to act as sociopaths toward the poor and larger society by using their ability to invest their way out of the problem. In places like California in particular where they've created artificial scarcity and consumers at all levels have felt the pinch of high prices, there is a great deal of anger and people simply want nothing to do with the government regulated grid because it has become much cheaper to not participate, for certain users regulation and supply constriction has incentivized and rewarded people to act anti-socially. I think they've reached the limits on market manipulation to where people are seeking alternatives to avoid government coercion. The problem is that alternative energies don't excuse us from our social commitments to the poor or to provide stable power to everyone. We all need hospitals to run, we need factories that have power, we need traffic lights that always run... etc. Even though they have less impact on the environment, producers of alternative energies have responsibilities to their neighbors. Alternatives will soon be the majority and will need to carry the lionshare of social burden. The longer we wait, the harder it becomes because people grow accustomed to the idea that they are entitled to what they produce without sharing, without regulation and they think the direct subsidies, tax incentives and other benenfits are simply their entitlement. I fail to see why Berkshire Hathaway should get government subsidies to earn 30% annual returns on renewables while a nuclear operator has to provide electricity at a loss. Or a homeowner that takes a government subsidy for half their cost of a solar array and battery system but then doesn't have to provide inter-connects to the grid and lower cost power to their neighbors who paid their subsidy. What happens to all their excess waste power during peak-sun hours? Look at what has happened to power markets in Germany. Lots of free loading and market problems that need to be sorted out. Usually economists have great ideas to solve these sorts of problems...

Dan Lynch said...

'The bigger Tesla battery isn't designed to go through more than about 50 charging cycles a year,'
.
"The model puts out just 2 kilowatts of continuous power, which could be pretty much maxed out by a single vacuum cleaner, hair drier, microwave oven or a clothes iron."
.
'Tesla is probably making very little profit on the home batteries at this point and might even be selling them at a loss.'

Tesla battery doesn't work that well.

Volkhad said...

The Conversation Tesla batteries: just the beginning of how technology will transform the electric grid. Michael McElfresh | Adjunct Professor of ... teslabattery.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Obviously now with Tesla's new solar powered roof cells, we're going to have to use the Tesla energy storage batteries by default. It's all making sense now isn't it?