Cheapest thing for most during a power outage is do nothing. (this is what I did before my generator) Even if you have to replace everything in your refrig, what would that cost. Second is a 500 buck generator to run the refrig. Get battery lights. Only folks with a lot of money to burn ever talk about solar and batteries.
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Elon tweets: Solar Roof and solar panels will only be sold integrated with Powerwall
- Thread starter willow_hiller
- Start date
Thats partially because you are not in California, subject to "power safety shutoffs" because a utility had to declare bankruptcy after not maintaining their infrastructure properly.
You only have to go through a couple of 1-2 day outages, with the promise that "this is going to happen every year" to want to have as little dependency on your utility as possible. For those of us here, this is no longer any sort of "doomsday prepper" scenario. Its a yearly occurrence which will go on into the foreseeable future, with the addition of rates for electricity where the "Cheap" rates from midnight to 6am are 15 cents kWh, while the "Prime" rates are 50 cents or more a kWh.
The less you depend on your utility out here, the better you feel.
i agree.
on the car end it makes sense.. for now with little competition esp. at the 3 price point.
Solar is a commodity though, if you find a cheaper installer (easy without PW) I went with TSLA b/c they allowed rentals and no fee removals. Not sure if I would buy (when we move) and put up with their install BS.
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This tweet is a classic "Look at the squirrel". Lol. Anything so people will stop talking about that solar roof
The grid may be stable, but you would be shocked how much the cost of the electricity running on the grid varies year to year, month to month, day to day, even hour to hour. Every large utility has a sizeable energy trading operation where they are buying and selling power all the time to maximize profits. Having a bunch of charged batteries that can be controlled minutely and brought online, taken offline from the grid by the push of a button is like having a magic wand that prints money in the energy trading market. This is the reason almost all utilities have started to deploy large scale batteries on their grid.
"Grid stability" includes a lot more factors than the end customer not experiencing an outage. A large installed base of Powerwalls with the ability to push power into the grid will PRINT money for Tesla and its customers.
Anyone who says that the battery itself is not revolutionary, let alone batteries large enough to power a car and now an entire house is not revolutionary --- well, its not that I would disagree, its that I guess we have a different definition of the word "revolutionary."
Energy storage has roughly evolved from:
1. Burning wood.
2. Using flowing water.
3. Fossil fuels.
4. Using 2 and 3 to produce electricity, which, regardless of how produced and on what scale, has the attribute of having the amount produced having to equal the amount in use.
5. The actual battery, looked at in comparison to say, a pile of wood, a dirty pile of coal in one's basement, or being lucky enough to live next to a stream, was revolutionary in that as you can see its different from any prior form of stored energy.
When you get to 6, battery technology large enough to power cars and houses, sure, it may just be a bigger battery but its revolutionary since in response to development 4 the modern world evolved to live , indeed survive, on electricity.
I don't know what more you would want.
Before battery tech, solar is obviously a revolutionary way of producing power, but without the ability to store it, well, it has its own limits since the electrical grid evolved and exists wiithin the limits of real time production.
Maybe you just have to watch a solar and PW system to sort of get it.
Energy storage has roughly evolved from:
1. Burning wood.
2. Using flowing water.
3. Fossil fuels.
4. Using 2 and 3 to produce electricity, which, regardless of how produced and on what scale, has the attribute of having the amount produced having to equal the amount in use.
5. The actual battery, looked at in comparison to say, a pile of wood, a dirty pile of coal in one's basement, or being lucky enough to live next to a stream, was revolutionary in that as you can see its different from any prior form of stored energy.
When you get to 6, battery technology large enough to power cars and houses, sure, it may just be a bigger battery but its revolutionary since in response to development 4 the modern world evolved to live , indeed survive, on electricity.
I don't know what more you would want.
Before battery tech, solar is obviously a revolutionary way of producing power, but without the ability to store it, well, it has its own limits since the electrical grid evolved and exists wiithin the limits of real time production.
Maybe you just have to watch a solar and PW system to sort of get it.
Tesla solar only pricing is too good to be true when it first started. They raised about 10% in price about a month back. Still even with that, their price is still very low. During the installation last year, the installer told me, Tesla pay them very well. The equipment price lower than any online pricing.
Basically, I just don't see how they can make a profit out of this.
So with this change, it will drive a lot of people away from Tesla.
In general, Tesla 40% less than others on PV only system. PW is 10k. If Tesla has to force every customer to purchase a PW.
Doing the math, it would mean the same system done by other installer would cost 25k without PW (10k/0.4)
For the customer who only want to spend less than 25k, they don't have any choice now.
Basically, I just don't see how they can make a profit out of this.
So with this change, it will drive a lot of people away from Tesla.
In general, Tesla 40% less than others on PV only system. PW is 10k. If Tesla has to force every customer to purchase a PW.
Doing the math, it would mean the same system done by other installer would cost 25k without PW (10k/0.4)
For the customer who only want to spend less than 25k, they don't have any choice now.
To me, this is one of those things many really "dont get" until you actually are doing it. Either you go through a multi day power outage with solar panels on your roof, frustrated that you cant use them, when "the sun is out, why do I not have power when I have solar?!?!?!"
Or, you know that for the most part, it doesnt matter how much the utility changes their TOU rates to, if you have a system + storage large enough to basically not pull from them for most of the year anyway (unless they try to tack on some sort of $100 a month " you have solar" surcharge just to be connected).
Or, you know that, during the summer, you can set your AC pretty much wherever you want, and still not worry about paying "peak" rates since they have shifted them to the afternoon / evening, when you have little to no solar.
Or, you know that, you can pretty much guarantee you will have power at your home, regardless of what is going on.
For many, these are incredibly reassuring feelings, but it is also one of those "have to live it to notice" type things. Just like driving a tesla vehicle is for me, actually. Having more power / performance than the BMWs I drove, while being cheaper to run for me than a econobox car, AND never having to plan to fill up my car ever again.... I have only been to a gas station like 3 times since December of 2018, and that was to fill up my wifes car. She puts gas in her car for the most part. It sounds like small things, but when you are living them, it becomes more than the sum of what you are talking about.
Its different than having a generator, at least to me, in the same way that a ICE vehicle is different than driving a performance EV.
If these products were not revolutionary, Tesla would have been a dead company a LOOOONNNNGGG time ago. The only reason they can get away with treating customers in the manner in which they do (many times) is BECAUSE the products are so good. Everyone keeps saying "but so and so is making such and such" and eventually someone will make a product that people want just as much.
Right now, though, their products are revolutionary, and the rate by which they are purchased means in general the public agrees.
I do not buy apple products since I do not like they way they do business. But others love them.
After going through multi day power outages, and the wife cannot flush the toilet because we have a pump, yep, it was worth the money to be able to do this with the generator. Now, the next time this happens and we can again run anything, but with no noise, well, shall be interesting.
And now the ability to be off the grid during peak, and most of the day is great.
Its just the winter months that are still an issue.
Yep. And the other thing about "treating their customers the way they do" - well, look.
If you go to Nordstrom, you get incredible "service" and you pay for it by purchasing products you could easily get somewhere else for less.
If you buy something from Tesla you not only get a product you cannot get anywhere else, but the company clearly puts all its resources into its produces and zero into advertising and zero into marketing, and yes, as little into "service" as they can possibly do.
Having paid plenty for "service" and having also purchased products which had no service component I don't see anything structurally wrong with the way Tesla is trying to set things up. I don't agree with every decision but I don't know if I see those decisions as an affirmative decision "against" customers.
pdx_m3s
Active Member
Totally understand, but what's right for the California market =/= what's right for the rest of the country.
Pricedm
Member
I placed an order 4/22 for solar only. If cost changes a lot, I will cancel and reorder with Powerwall. Twelve years in my current house, only experienced less than four hours of grid outage, over two events. I don't see the benefit of a Powerwall. Open to persuasion of benefits; but doubling the cost to add Powerwall seems excessive, for my situation. $0.126 per kWh for my grid costs.
Tesla energy likely has enough business in california to not even worry about selling anywhere else right now (although they do obviously sell other places).
Anyone (not just you) who doesnt want a powerwall, should just plan on moving onto another vendor. Thats what I was saying in the beginning of this thread, this likely will be good for third party vendors.
Powerwalls sell enough to people who want them that there doesnt need to be "persuadiung" for people who dont, they should just buy from someone who will not force them to buy something they decided they dont want.
Same as they handle current PV requirements, require shutdown to the DC conductors. This is code in 2020 NEC. Otherwise the DC conductors are no more scary than the ones from your PV system.
Well, I came out to about 16 cents per kwh with powerwalls vs. 23 cents and up so it was not difficult financially.
However, without PWs how the system "compares" to your utility is dependent on the utilities NEM policy.
With my system, PWs cost more but I don't have to do the following calculation.
Let's say that you are at 12 cents. I would imagine solar alone to cover the same kwh per year might be about 9 cents.
However, what is going to happen in practice is that one half of your production will be used as its produced, and one half will be sent back to the grid.
If they pay, or credit you for less than the cost of producing the energy, only for you to have to buy it back anyway during peak hours, its not a simple calculation.
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