PowerPack... for home! Why not?

[jerry33]

How does one even start the conversation about a powerpack for multiple residences? I am contributing to an 18-family farm-residential project, and this would make sense. Any pointers from those here to an effective point of contact?

The problem is going to be that many jurisdictions have laws against anything that resembles selling electricity and not being a utility. You need to check those laws first.

 

[ScepticMatt]

PowerPacks are only available at a minimum of 5 pieces with a Dynapower MPS-250 inverter.

For utility scale systems, 100kWh battery blocks are grouped to scale from 500kWh to 10MWh+.

Dynapower Company, the global leader in energy storage inverters, announced that it will be supplying the 250 kW energy storage inverters as an integral part of Tesla’s recently announced Powerpack Commercial battery systems for large commercial and utility customers.

Tesla’s Powerpack systems are designed for large commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications. Multiple 100 kWh DC battery blocks are grouped to scale from 500 kWh to 10 MWh+.

for now anyway

 

[wycolo]

No matter how much I might pump back into the grid I still cannot eliminate my $25.00 residence minimum monthly charge. Isn't that what 'net' metering means?

True, I can disconnect service permanently, but would have to pay a stiff re-connect fee should I, or a successor, decide in future to re-connect.

Re the 18 family farm-residence project: presumably this would be a mini-coop with each member owning shares etc, so no 'selling' would take place. Just a guess and assuming it to be off grid.
--

 

[Mayhemm]

Would love to add some PowerWalls to my home as a backup in case of extended outages but we use several MWh per month (electric everything, no NG access). I'd use the "weekly cycle" battery in a day (less in wintertime). I don't have the space for a string of PowerWalls, so it's PowerPack or nothing for me. Right now, it's sounding like nothing is the only option.

 

[JFK]

I plan on going off grid with my new home and a PowerPack would be perfect.

Surely if there was enough demand, Tesla would consider selling PowerPack for the domestic market.

I think there would be good demand in Australia despite the current Government's anti renewables policy.

 

[ecarfan]

I think the PowerPack operates at 400V, so unfortunately that could be an obstacle. I have had the same thought as you did about a PowerPack connected to a residential solar array.

 

[miimura]

I think the PowerPack operates at 400V, so unfortunately that could be an obstacle. I have had the same thought as you did about a PowerPack connected to a residential solar array.

There are good reasons for Tesla to offer the PowerPack in ALL common service voltages and configurations. The battery system and the inverter system are inherently separate sub-systems that could be independently configured.

 

[MitchJi]

I'd look for or wait for a good price on a used MS, MX or M3 pack. IMO the $18-$19k price for the 85kwh pack that I saw in the TMC Marketplace is insanely high, for a pack from an wrecked car.

I just bought a 16kwh Volt pack, they are easy to find now for $1,500-$2k. There are about 50 now on car-part.com.
http://www.car-part.com/

I searched by distance from my zip code. I found one for $1,771, with a six month warranty 90 miles away:

And see if Tesla will sell you a Powerpack without cells:

 

[Oba]

You-who-live-in-the-real-world might face a zoning code problem of not legally being able to snip your line feed. I would start there - see if you have the right to tell your local provider to do something anatomically impossible with its power. Good luck!

All these loony rules about staying on grid are easily circumvented when a single LED light is put on grid power, and everything else is powered separately with the flip of a switch.

Just never disconnect.

 

[WentOffGrid]

All these loony rules about staying on grid are easily circumvented when a single LED light is put on grid power, and everything else is powered separately with the flip of a switch.

Just never disconnect.

And then you also have the opportunity to backfeed when your batteries are near full, it's a pity to waste solar energy even if you get no real money for it

 

[macpacheco]

Let's use solar and power packs here instead. Example. Navajo Generating Station is a 2250 megawatt coal-fired powerplant located on the Navajo Indian Reservation, near Page, Arizona, United States. The number of solar panels and power packs needed to produce 2500+megawatts at just this one station to completely make it renewable, will bring the price of solar and power packs down!! Arizona owns the sun and you'd think this would be the easiest of switchovers on the planet!! Multiply that by many many old nasty coal fired generating stations and we will be on the way to really making a difference in global CO2 levels, not to mention cleaning up the horrific toxic mess done to the earth over all these years. The time is now!! ..... Wow!! I'd love to see a 3000 to 4000 megawatt solar farm! That number would provide a little cushion for the future too. ..... and again....ARIZONA HAS THE SUN TO DO IT!!!!!!!!!

The lowest hanging fruit is Hawaii and other sunny islands that are rich (US$ or Euros) and where electricity is mostly produced from Diesel or Heavy Oil.
Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Guam, perhaps most of the Caribean.
Coal is cheap. We should tax carbon and price coal out of the market. But that's a pipe dream for the USA it seems.
Places that have lots of hydro electricity already have the battery, the hydro damns themselves.
A 2250MW coal powerplant produces as much electricity in a day (52GWh) as the full gigafactory is planned to make batteries in a year at full capacity.
It will take dozens of Giga Factories to make a dent on coal in the world, and first Tesla will need to achieve economies of scale making powerpacks even cheaper.

 

[MitchJi]

The lowest hanging fruit is Hawaii and other sunny islands that are rich (US$ or Euros) and where electricity is mostly produced from Diesel or Heavy Oil.Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Guam, perhaps most of the Caribean.

It will take dozens of Giga Factories to make a dent on coal in the world, and first Tesla will need to achieve economies of scale making powerpacks even cheaper.

No, they will make them cheaper, but they are already cheap enough that they are economically compelling now!
Why Energy Storage is About to Get Big and Cheap | Ramez Naam

First, Texas utility Oncor commissioned a study (pdf link – The Value of Distributed Electricity Storage in Texas) of whether it would be cost-effective to deploy storage throughout the Texas grid (called ERCOT), placing the energy storage at the ‘edge’ of the grid, close to consumers.

The conclusion was an overwhelming yes. The study authors concluded that, at a capital cost of $350 / kwh for lithium-ion batteries (which they expected by 2020, but which Tesla has already beaten), it made sense across the ERCOT region to deploy at least 15,000 MWh of battery storage. (That would be 15 million KWh, or the equivalent battery capacity of nearly 160,000 Tesla model 85Ds.)

The study authors concluded that this additional battery storage would slightly lower consumer electrical bills, reduce outages, reduce the need to build added capacity (by shifting the peak, much as a home battery would), and similarly reduce the need to build additional transmission and distribution lines.

You can also see that at a slightly lower price of storage than the $350 / kwh assumed here, the economic case for 8,000 MW (or 24,000 MWh) of storage becomes clear. And we are very likely about to see such prices.

8,000 MW or 8 GW is a very substantial amount of energy storage. For context, average US electrical draw (over day/night, 365 days a year) is roughly 400 GW. So this study is claiming that in Texas alone, the economic case for energy storage is strong enough to motivate storage capacity equivalent to 2% of the US’s average power draw.

ERCOT consumes roughly 1/11th of the US’s electricity. (ERCOT uses roughly 331,000 GWh / year. The US as a whole roughly 3.7 million GWh / year.) If similar findings hold true in other grids (unknown as of yet), that would imply an economic case fairly soon for energy storage capacity of 22% of US electric draw for 3 hours, meaning roughly 88,000 MW or 264,000 MWh.

Replacing Natural Gas Peakers

The grid has to be built out to support the peak of use, not the average of use. Part of that peak is sheer load. Earlier I mentioned natural gas ‘peaker’ plants. Peaker plants are reserve natural gas plants. On average they’re active far less than 10% of the time. They sit idle, fueled, ready to come online to respond to peaking electricity demand. Even in this state, bringing a peaker online takes a few minutes.

Peaker plants are expensive. They operate very little of the time, so their construction costs are amortized over few kwh; They require constant maintenance to be sure they’re ready to go; and they’re less efficient than combined cycle natural gas plants, burning roughly 1.5x as much fuel per kwh of electricity delivered, since the economics of investing in their efficiency hardly make sense when they run for so little of the time.

The net result is that energy storage appears on the verge of undercutting peaker plants. You can find multiple articles online on this topic. Let me point you to one in-depth report, by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI): Cost-Effectiveness of Energy Storage in California (pdf).

This report specifically looked at the viability of replacing some of California’s natural gas peaker plans.

While the EPRI California study was asking a different question than the ERCOT study that looked at storage at the edge, it came to a similar conclusion. Storage would cost money, but the economic benefit to the grid of replacing natural gas peaker plants with battery storage was greater than the cost. Shockingly, this was true even when they used fairly high prices. The default assumption here was a 2020 lithium-ion battery price of $528 / kwh. The breakeven price their analysis found was $842 / kwh, three times as high as Tesla’s announced utility scale price of $250/kwh.

 

[macpacheco]

Mitch, without storage, Hawaii can't go 100% renewables. Last I heard, the local utility was seriously curtailing new solar installations.
This means that a new solar install might be forced to adopt storage, and either go off grid or be limited to purchasing electricity only off peak and be forbidden from selling to the grid at peak solar hours. Just guessing, based on available information.
A while ago, before we had this compelling solution I argued with a lot of people right here about this. If everybody goes solar, and there is no storage, and combined solar generation exceeds demand, the grid will collapse at peak solar hours. That's the point you religious pro solar people forget.

 

[compchat]

I've been trying to order a powerpack from Solar city to be installed with my solar installation. They are not avaiable until after January 2016 (if that). Solar City salesman was adamant that I not order the powerpack as it would : 1. delay installation of solar panels until nobody knows when. 2. They are first generation and nobody really knows there reliability 3. The price will come down 4. And the big one...you may only use them if/when the grid is out. You cannot use them when the electric rates are high but only when there is a black out. Period. Further what can you really power with 10 Kilowatts away. Light bulb for one hour is .1 Kilowatt. Salesman said I could run 4 20 amp circuits on it and that's it.

Also Tesla sells the 10 KW for $3500 and Solar City for $4000. Salesman told me the $500 is for installation but I've seen nothing in writing about that.

After considering everything I decided to proceed with the solar panels but not with the power pack. I'm hoping 1-2 years from now the power pack will be cheaper, more reliable and available.:wink:

- - - Updated - - -

Just to be clear, the power pack cannot be used to power your home unless there is a blackout. Period. You may store free solar energy on it and sell it back to the SDG&E. However they only buy it back at something like 3.5 cents per KW. Crunch the numbers and you'll see right now that it's not a good investment unless you live in an area with an unstable grid.

 

[Owner]

But that's not what their home page says on the web:

I've been trying to order a powerpack from Solar city to be installed with my solar installation.... You cannot use them when the electric rates are high but only when there is a black out. Period.

Just to be clear, the power pack cannot be used to power your home unless there is a blackout. Period. You may store free solar energy on it and sell it back to the SDG&E. However they only buy it back at something like 3.5 cents per KW. Crunch the numbers and you'll see right now that it's not a good investment unless you live in an area with an unstable grid.

 

[ecarfan]

Thank you for passing on the information you received from SolarCity. I want to note that while you repeatedly used the term "powerpack" I believe you are referring to the Tesla Energy "Powerwall" 10kWh product. The 100kWh "Powerpack" is a very different product specifically designed for commercial use at 400V, not for residential use. See Tesla Reveals Battery Storage Solution - 7kWh, 10 kWh, 100 kWh Just wanted to clarify that so there is no confusion.
This thread is specifically about the idea of using the Powerpack in a residential situation (see the OP), and it appears that is not possible. Furthermore, some have stated that Tesla will only sell the Powerpack in a min up quantity of 5. The Powerwall can be purchased individually.

I've been trying to order a powerpack from Solar city to be installed with my solar installation. They are not avaiable until after January 2016 (if that). Solar City salesman was adamant that I not order the powerpack as it would : 1. delay installation of solar panels until nobody knows when. 2. They are first generation and nobody really knows there reliability 3. The price will come down 4. And the big one...you may only use them if/when the grid is out. You cannot use them when the electric rates are high but only when there is a black out. Period. Further what can you really power with 10 Kilowatts away. Light bulb for one hour is .1 Kilowatt. Salesman said I could run 4 20 amp circuits on it and that's it.

Also Tesla sells the 10 KW for $3500 and Solar City for $4000. Salesman told me the $500 is for installation but I've seen nothing in writing about that.

After considering everything I decided to proceed with the solar panels but not with the power pack. I'm hoping 1-2 years from now the power pack will be cheaper, more reliable and available.:wink:

- - - Updated - - -

Just to be clear, the power pack cannot be used to power your home unless there is a blackout. Period. You may store free solar energy on it and sell it back to the SDG&E. However they only buy it back at something like 3.5 cents per KW. Crunch the numbers and you'll see right now that it's not a good investment unless you live in an area with an unstable grid.

 

[bwa]

Just to be clear, the power pack cannot be used to power your home unless there is a blackout. Period. You may store free solar energy on it and sell it back to the SDG&E. However they only buy it back at something like 3.5 cents per KW. Crunch the numbers and you'll see right now that it's not a good investment unless you live in an area with an unstable grid.

Did you mean Powerwall? Either way, my statements hold:

That's a paper tiger. A few years down the road, there will be simple ways to have off-grid solar with storage, with occasional grid-use for cloudy months, and sell-back of excess during sunny months, give or take. What I'm saying is that what you are quoting is the policy of some filtered down conservative don't-rock-the-boat policy that won't stand the test of time. Smart grid will eventually integrate not only backup but also storage and time of use properties of PV + battery. We are at the most "restricted" point in time in that path right now going forward in time (of course if you look back in time you can find more restricted points). What you quote now will only go as far as today's deals. We already see dinosaur-based utilities kicking and screaming about their extincting business policies, and those antiquated policies will smoulder out while being replaced with newer brighter policies. Of course, if you go run into the coals of antiquity, you'll experience their burning effect firsthand, so I don't doubt today's quotes of crappy policy. No one planning for the future assumes these types of policies in the long term, unless you have a contract lock-in.

 

[compchat]

Sorry I meant Powerwall, of course. That's what I get for posting so late at night. BTW I am reading on Solar City Website that you can use your powerwall at any time. What it costs you depends on which plan you choose with solar city. However, I am fairly certain that my salesman stressed that I could not use the powerwall in any scenario other than a black out. I'll send the salesperson an email and try to get clarification.

I'm wondering if using the battery power with the 7 KW battery is allowed but is not allowed with the 10 KW battery. More reading suggests that the 7 KW is designed for daily use but the 10 KW is designed for power outage scenarios. Again clarification from solar city would be nice.

 

[compchat]

I just got home my car is on empty, say 2 miles remaining and I want to fully charge it. I'll need 84kWh for the pack and..... I have twin air conditioners here and it's gonna be 111 degrees today. Pool pumps, waterfall pumps, some vacuuming, a load or two of laundry, basic LED lighting for the interior and exterior of the home. There goes another 100kWh. Yes 184kWh in a single day to live comfortably. Say 200kWh. I know that's a lot, but on some days very realistic. Now, solar feeds the power pack, great, but I need a larger system than I currently have so, my guess, a system that produces at least 100kWh/day in the summer....store some... use some....some days us a lot!! I'll need to add sixty panels to my roof. I'm willing to do all that but it does get a little pricey, all to move off the grid. So for the time being, and because it is easy where one can stayed tied to the grid with minimum monthly billing, tied to the grid am I. If the power pack were to drop in price significantly and the price for solar continues to drop as I expect they will, it may indeed be worth it! IMHO as of today, it's on the radar screen.... but it just doesn't make $ense!

GEEZ, how big of a roof do you own ? I just had solar city tell me that my home which is 3000 SQ can fit but 57 panels which would give me a 15.5 KW system. Ten hours of sun per day would give me 155 KW per day. But because of the roof configuration he later lowered it to 44 panels which gives me 110 KW in a 10 hour summer day. So I'm wondering how you plan to configure panels that would give you 200 KW per day. Do you own a mansion ?

I'm new to this so I'm trying to understand what's happening in your scenario.

The installation of the panels costs me nothing from solar city. I'm wondering how they make their money back. When installed and running I will be paying solar city for my electricity with a true-up at the beginning of next year. One of their options is to simply charge me 15 cents per KW. In my area the cheapest tier is 17c/KW going up to 49 cents in the highest tier (South Orange County California). The high price of electricity where I live makes this deal viable for them, or so I'm told.

 

[Klaus]

You got to keep your kW and kWh straight ...

In addition, a roof PV system won't ever generate its rated output for 10 hrs a day because of sun angle variation.