7 C/kWh energy for Semi customers

[Olle]

Would be interesting to discuss how Tesla will fulfill their promise of 7c /kWh electricity to Semi customers.

On this EIA page we can see that wholesale electricity has barely been over 7c in January in the US except once in New England. Average seems to be around 4 cents. Looks promising so far!
Electricity Monthly Update

But that is without distribution. How will Tesla afford to bring the power onto the customers' lots for under 7c? Will it be just to the lot line? And will the customer then have to pay for transformers, cable digging and Megachargers in addition to the 7c or will it be included?
Will there be separate Megachargers anywhere or will they all be at the customer's location? Let the speculation begin

 

[SpiceWare]

I posted these in a similar topic:

USA’s cheapest solar power in Austin, Texas – ~2.5¢/kWh for 150MW of solar electricity

Wind blowing and sun shining in Colorado – brand new wind or solar plus batteries cheaper than running an old coal plant

medians were 2.1¢/kWh and 3.6¢/kWh for wind and solar power plus energy storage, respectively.

 

[Chuq]

I would have thought the only way that they can guarantee a price is to be completely off-grid; e.g. they use their own solar panels and battery storage (both of which they make in bulk, themselves, in their Gigafactories). Tesla pays for this and then the truck operators pay per kWh. No electricity supply costs, and minimal maintenance. All costs are known and are under their control. The 7c/kWh just has to cover the cost of the station over the 10-15 year lifetime of the system. And of course "lifetime" here may just mean replacing a few battery packs to bring it back to as-new.

The only catch is that the area of the solar panels required may exceed the surface area of the site.

It's also possible they could augment the above example with a small grid connection, for trickle charging, but also for exporting solar when the batteries are full.

 

[Olle]

I would have thought the only way that they can guarantee a price is to be completely off-grid; e.g. they use their own solar panels and battery storage (both of which they make in bulk, themselves, in their Gigafactories). Tesla pays for this and then the truck operators pay per kWh. No electricity supply costs, and minimal maintenance. All costs are known and are under their control. The 7c/kWh just has to cover the cost of the station over the 10-15 year lifetime of the system. And of course "lifetime" here may just mean replacing a few battery packs to bring it back to as-new.

The only catch is that the area of the solar panels required may exceed the surface area of the site.

It's also possible they could augment the above example with a small grid connection, for trickle charging, but also for exporting solar when the batteries are full.

Good point. The ability to guarantee 7 c with own power generation equipment will be a function of equipment, land/space and maintenance cost and cost of capital. To complicate things further, there are places on earth, Florida for example, where you are not allowed to sell electricity unless you are a utility (read monopoly). But if Tesla has enough solar generation equipment perhaps they can qualify (pay off the right politicians) as one?
Btw the Q4 report said $298MM revenue from Tesla Energy. Does anybody here know how the ramp up for powerpacks and solar panels is going now?

 

[swaltner]

To complicate things further, there are places on earth, Florida for example, where you are not allowed to sell electricity unless you are a utility (read monopoly).

It's a minor distinction, but I believe the laws that you're thinking of all state that only utilities are able to charge for electricity by the kWh, not an outright ban on selling electricity by non-utility entities. When these laws are in place, companies are still allowed to charge for electricity by the minute or a flat fee or some other metric not tied *directly* to the number of kWh delivered. Kansas has such laws, which is why Tesla sells electricity by the minute at Superchargers for vehicles without free Supercharging. Also, according to Tesla's web page at Supercharging, Tesla sells electricity by the kWh in Florida ($0.13 per kWh as of today), so it doesn't seem like Florida has these restrictions in place.