Tesla Stationary Storage Investors Thread

[Robert.Boston]

Recycling American Coal Plants | MIT Technology Review
There are few things I enjoy as much as an article about repurposing coal, but I can't fathom how this author missed the potential to turn retired coal plants in to energy storage stations by swapping old machinery with with batteries. Many coal plants have been retrofitted with NG, but the ones retrofitted with batteries might just knock out gas plants as well.

The author may have missed it, but I know for a fact that the major independent generation owners haven't overlooked this opportunity. Still, storage is better co-located with either the variable generation it's helping to integrate or with load; co-location reduces transmission losses. The advantages of reusing old fossil plant sites are (a) cheap land because of contaminants and (b) transmission interconnection. Very few storage sites are so big that (b) matters--yet.

 

[jhm]

The author may have missed it, but I know for a fact that the major independent generation owners haven't overlooked this opportunity. Still, storage is better co-located with either the variable generation it's helping to integrate or with load; co-location reduces transmission losses. The advantages of reusing old fossil plant sites are (a) cheap land because of contaminants and (b) transmission interconnection. Very few storage sites are so big that (b) matters--yet.

Yeah, Robert, collocation at active plants makes more sense, especially while the volume of batteries is small. I wonder if some coal generators may be thinking they can postpone an early retirement by loading up on batteries. It seems they could argue that such a hybrid coal plant is more efficient and facilitates integrating more renewables in the grid. If adding batteries could offset the need for a new gas peaking plant, could that be a compelling argument to keep a coal plant in operation?

 

[Gerardf]

MB introduces their offer:


Accumotive - Mercedes-Benz Energiespeicher

Reservations Now Open For Mercedes-Benz Battery Energy Storage System

The residential units, which are sold as 2.5 kWh units, but can be combined to include up to 8 modules (20 kWh), are now available for reservation.


Not very impressive. And I wonder what the price is ?


Spec's for their "PowerPack" & 1 MWh system

- Rating 1.000 kW
- Energy content 1.190 kWh
- AC output voltage 400 V / 50 Hz
- Cell technology : Lithium-Ion (Nickel, Mangan, Cobalt)
- Number of full cycles 4,000 cycles (100 % DOD, 1 C/1 C)
- Expected service life >10 years
- Configuration 34 DC cabinets, scalable in steps of 35 kWh
- Dimensions W/H/D in meter Minimum 10.5 x 8.0 x 3.2

Source : https://schlauerspeichern.de/Batteriespeicher_Datenblatt_Business_DE_EN.pdf

 

[Johan]

Anyone able to get a real answer on pricing of the MB units please post here! It will tell us quite a bit about just how much of a head start Tesla has.

 

[electracity]

MB introduces their offer:


Accumotive - Mercedes-Benz Energiespeicher

Two year standard warranty compared to 10 for the powerwall.

 

[Gerardf]

Testcase shows Saft is to expensive, but reading this Tesla PowerPack should fit.

Testcase shows Saft is to expensive, but reading this Tesla PowerPack should make this use case economically feasable.

If indeed a price level Euro 500 - 1.000 kWh (without inverter & installation costs) is already economic in Germany for storage, it will be hard to overestimate the energy storage opportunity Tesla PowerPack will have in Europe priced at Euro 230,-- per kWh (US$ 250).


Source : Power grid pilot highlights Europe's battery storage failings

"A pilot project run by Europe's largest power network operator to integrate power from rooftop solar panels into the grid has shown that battery storage of renewable energy is not yet economically viable in Europe."

.... the cost of batteries has proved the project's Achilles Heel.

ERDF's Nice pilot has learned that battery storage in Europe costs 500 to 1,000 euros per kilowatt/hour (KWh), with an extra 30 percent for installation and the inverters that turn direct current solar power into the alternate current used on the grid, an ERDF official said.

At that level, battery storage would already be economically viable in certain parts of Germany and Denmark, where renewable energy use is most advanced and where retail power rates, at around 30 eurocents per kilowatt/hour (KWh), are among the highest in Europe, according to Eurostat data.

But that is not the case for France, where residential power rates are around 17 cents per KWh, and most of Europe, where power averages about 21 cents.

"Economical feasibility is usually not a given in most of mainland Europe's grids," acknowledged Michael Lippert, head of Saft's new energy storage unit.

Some analysts expect the tipping point for batteries in Europe could come around 2020. The ERDF official said it is hard to forecast by how much more the cost of batteries would have to fall to become viable for grid storage. "That is one thing we will have to evaluate at the end of the Nice pilot," said Lippert."

 

[jhm]

AGL offering 7.2kWh battery storage at under $10,000 : Renew Economy

Prices are coming down! Well kinda... AGL, a utility in Australia, is offering a 7.2 kWh system for the modest price of AUD10,000, about USD7,444.

The comments are interesting and show how eagerly people are anticipating the Powerwall.

 

[bonaire]

Key item in that AGL offering article:

Analysts are also curious why, in some cases, basic battery storage systems can be bought in China for around $150/kWh but then marked up to $1,000kWh when sold in Australia. The additional of a battery management system will put the price up, but not to this extent.

“That’s a ton(ne) of markup,” said another analyst.

Remember though that Tesla is selling powerwalls and powerpacks "to installers" at the prices given back during the reveal. What the installers charge is where the markup is found and so they may require price limits on what an independent installer (local mom and pop solar pv installers who re-sell) can charge for the battery parts. Well, if markup will come it would then come in BoS (Balance Of System) areas like engineering, permitting, labor, transport costs and other. I'm sure there will be some abuse here and there. I remember back in about 2010 or 2011 when a local installer put up a 1.8KW system (8 modules) on my sister-in-law's house. $16,000 through a loan - they were sold on the very good SREC market at the time which has since collapsed. I didn't know about it until after they did it but would have stopped them. Another friend put up a 20KW system on his roof (big system) and paid over $120,000 for it because his state of NJ was offering $600/ea pricing on SRECs at the time. Not any more. My 8kw system at $32K seems like pocket change and includes a variety of extras not in a usual system.

I also want to note another abuse regarding EVs. Back a couple years ago, there was a program where Blink offered "free chargers" for homeowners in some states. Many who looked into it had electrician pricing well over $1000 to pull a couple wires. My own electrician did my L2 EVSE install in 2013 for $230 with some nice work for what the Blink guy quoted $1020 to do for a "free" charger. There will be abuses of stationary storage systems, especially in states which offer rebates or other big incentives. NY and CA come to mind right now.

 

[electracity]

Installed costs are more complicated. Look at the solaredge implementation of the powerwall. If the end user wants power when the grid is down, a sub panel with breakers and a auto transformer needs to be installed. Once we can make Apples to Apples comparisons in the real world we can draw conclusions of value between choices. The only cost from an installer I have seen is $500/kwh for the 10/kwh powerwall.

 

[bonaire]

electracity - is that the SCTY install price if a powerwall is installed along with a solar pv array? Is that nationally or just in CA?
Couple points:
- standby power (ie. what SCTY will install, the backup wall @ 10kWh) is not available for CA SGIP monies
- but is available for Federal Tax Credit 30% due to the programmability of the wall being charged with Solar PV during the day. If it can be "walled off" from charging from the grid and just charged during the day, it apparently falls under the single-use IRS Tax treatment and thus, a standby wall offers the buyer 30% tax credits being "part of the system".
- if the $5K SCTY price is "bundled" into a solar lease, then the buyer is SCTY and not the homeowner and tax credit goes to the buyer.
- The tax credit makes doing the wall @ $5K more affordable for the installer since they can claim 30% on it.
- the pricing "to the homeowner" may look like $5K but could be bundled as a higher priced component to allow for the 30% credit to work better.

I would like to see pricing on an installation of a 2-wall scenario (2 x 7kWh) for load shaving in a state other than California without Solar PV along with it.
That would be $6K wholesale costs to the installer, plus shipping, plus labor and materials for the walls' installation. Will they do it for under $10K?
I know someone here said that in their state of PA, they have customers going off-grid and waiting for the wall to become available in order to do it. I'd like to see such a system priced out and written up in a magazine article as an example system.

I'm not too sure I like the fact that a backup battery that will hardly ever be used is available for 30% Federal Tax credit due to the way a judge treated the scenario of dual-use versus single-use. perhaps they didn't make it clear that the intention of the batteries to be charged by Solar PV would be used for backup power and not for off-grid power.

 

[Bgarret]

So this is the financing aspect of the 50MW that Advanced Microgrid Systems announced when it announced it would buy 500 Mwh of Tesla Power Packs. The good thing about this is SUNE and their YieldCo TerraForm have been the most aggressive financiers in the renewable space, buying First Wind and billions of other solar and renewable assets. This is their first storage investment and if it is a template, SUNE has worldwide reach, hedge fund backing and could unleash some powerful demand for stationary storage.

SunEdison and Advanced Microgrid Solutions Join Forces to Finance and Deploy 50 Megawatts of Energy Storage for Southern California Edison - Yahoo Finance

 

[electracity]

electracity - is that the SCTY install price if a powerwall is installed along with a solar pv array? Is that nationally or just in CA?
Couple points:
- standby power (ie. what SCTY will install, the backup wall @ 10kWh) is not available for CA SGIP monies
- but is available for Federal Tax Credit 30% due to the programmability of the wall being charged with Solar PV during the day. If it can be "walled off" from charging from the grid and just charged during the day, it apparently falls under the single-use IRS Tax treatment and thus, a standby wall offers the buyer 30% tax credits being "part of the system".
- if the $5K SCTY price is "bundled" into a solar lease, then the buyer is SCTY and not the homeowner and tax credit goes to the buyer.
- The tax credit makes doing the wall @ $5K more affordable for the installer since they can claim 30% on it.
- the pricing "to the homeowner" may look like $5K but could be bundled as a higher priced component to allow for the 30% credit to work better.

I would like to see pricing on an installation of a 2-wall scenario (2 x 7kWh) for load shaving in a state other than California without Solar PV along with it.
That would be $6K wholesale costs to the installer, plus shipping, plus labor and materials for the walls' installation. Will they do it for under $10K?
I know someone here said that in their state of PA, they have customers going off-grid and waiting for the wall to become available in order to do it. I'd like to see such a system priced out and written up in a magazine article as an example system.

I'm not too sure I like the fact that a backup battery that will hardly ever be used is available for 30% Federal Tax credit due to the way a judge treated the scenario of dual-use versus single-use. perhaps they didn't make it clear that the intention of the batteries to be charged by Solar PV would be used for backup power and not for off-grid power.

The $5K price is probably at the same time as the solar install, but I'm not sure. It only has to be charged from the solar panels, not AC, to be eligible for the ITC AFAIK. Here's a relevant program, and a reason not to install the 10kwh version:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/sdges-proposes-a-bring-your-own-battery-tariff

 

[bonaire]

That program seems smart but should be well-reviewed to watch for abuses. In some states, such a "tariff" includes states like Pennsylvania where they have an Act 129 solution that allows power providers to turn of air conditioning for 15 minute increments during peak load scenarios. They pay homeowners for that solution - but I don't know if it does much good. They do not increase the thermostat set points, they just turn the AC off. What happens when it comes back on is that the AC will just run hard again trying to reach the setpoint of the thermostat. What is needed is NEST type internet-connected thermostats such that homes can have their set points bumped up 1-2 degrees during such periods at a time by a grid provider.

The Grid providers themselves have to do a better job of describing the monster that they are fighting. If cutting the top off the peak load spike that happens daily is the monster, then they need to quantify just how much of that spike will be solved by deploying well-thought-out grid batteries to heavy industries using power mid-day to later afternoon. The incentive there is a combination of West-facing solar, battery storage and conservation efforts to lower power demand. It is more than just installing batteries alone. There is traction in the Western-facing solar PV installation efforts now - as such, you get much better solar pv yields in later afternoons with west-facing modules than south-facing. Dual-axis is of course "the best" solution but very expensive and prone to some failures. For the most part, the monster itself is air conditioning loads across large regions.

 

[blakegallagher]

That program seems smart but should be well-reviewed to watch for abuses. In some states, such a "tariff" includes states like Pennsylvania where they have an Act 129 solution that allows power providers to turn of air conditioning for 15 minute increments during peak load scenarios. They pay homeowners for that solution - but I don't know if it does much good. They do not increase the thermostat set points, they just turn the AC off. What happens when it comes back on is that the AC will just run hard again trying to reach the setpoint of the thermostat. What is needed is NEST type internet-connected thermostats such that homes can have their set points bumped up 1-2 degrees during such periods at a time by a grid provider.

The Grid providers themselves have to do a better job of describing the monster that they are fighting. If cutting the top off the peak load spike that happens daily is the monster, then they need to quantify just how much of that spike will be solved by deploying well-thought-out grid batteries to heavy industries using power mid-day to later afternoon. The incentive there is a combination of West-facing solar, battery storage and conservation efforts to lower power demand. It is more than just installing batteries alone. There is traction in the Western-facing solar PV installation efforts now - as such, you get much better solar pv yields in later afternoons with west-facing modules than south-facing. Dual-axis is of course "the best" solution but very expensive and prone to some failures. For the most part, the monster itself is air conditioning loads across large regions.

I wonder at what price point of batteries does it no longer make sense to point panels west facing? At some point capturing more of the suns rays will be more important with cheap storage than increasing peak production.

 

[Ampster]

Good question. Lots of factors are going to drive that in addition to battery prices. For example, here in Southern California we often get morning clouds so there is more solation in the afternoons. Some folks near the ocean say we get reflectance from the ocean as the sun heads west. My panels are flat.

 

[jhm]

I wonder at what price point of batteries does it no longer make sense to point panels west facing? At some point capturing more of the suns rays will be more important with cheap storage than increasing peak production.

Two incomplete answers.
1. By 2020ish I expect the price of Powerpacks to approach $150/kWh, whence the cost of storage approaches 3c/kWh. Southfacing solar should also approach 3c/kWh. How much more expensive would west facing solar be? If less than twice the cost, then the west facing is cheaper than south facing plus storage.

2. Rooftop solar presents situations where west facing is cheaper than south facing. A real interesting case in point is that SolarCity's Zep Solar has developed a mounting system for commercial flat roofs that run east-west. The rows run north-south in pairs such that one side is east facing and the other side west facing. There is a common support between the paired rows so as to minimize material in the frame. The geometry also removes shadowing problems allowing for more panels per surface area. They are designed for rapid installation. A large roof that once might take a crew 20 days to install can now be installed in 3 days. So the cost of this system fully installed is quite close to utility ground mounted systems. Finally the east-west mix of orientation provides for wide and even power production throughout the day which minimizes the need for net metering or batteries. (I suspect the Gigafactory may prove to be the ultimate show case for this system.) So basically the challenges of rooftop mounting provides natural opportunities for west and east facing installations.

 

[sahanim]

Tesla CTO: Batteries + Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years - Forbes

Don't think this has been posted here yet.

 

[bonaire]

jhm, if utilities want to smooth the power demand curve, they themselves would utilize some large-scale multi-MW farms of west-facing modules. Or, perhaps using one-axis tracking which isn't a lot more expensive than regular racking. With one axis tracking, amount of capture can be quite and good can even perform both power to morning-charge a battery set followed by excess power later in the afternoon which then is supplemented by batteries. It is said that 1-axis tracking may gain 20% of energy harvested. Tracker solutions work best with the highest efficiency modules available.

 

[jhm]

Tesla CTO: Batteries + Solar Will Lead to Cheap Electricity Within 10 Years - Forbes

Don't think this has been posted here yet.

From the article :

For larger projects that serve business and utility customers, Tesla plans to charge a wholesale price of $250 per kilowatt-hour for the batteries alone and $500 per kilowatt-hour for a system that includes the power electronics, thermal control devices and software, said a Tesla spokeswoman. That price for the whole system should fall to less than $300 per kilowatt-hour when the new factory reaches full production in 2020.

Anyone know more about this?

 

[bonaire]

interesting line there. "for larger projects"

$250/kWh was already called out for the price of powerpacks at 100 kWh per pack, $25,000. Now, $500/kWh is still a number just starting to be seen on full system eligibility costs when looking at the claimed full system price listed in the california s.g.i.p. data that is publicly available. A 50KW system (presumably two powerpacks @ 200kWh) would be $50,000 in batteries. The projects are posted as $100,000 eligible price. that seems to go with the statement. But is a 2-pack project really "for larger projects"? And is it a good guess to think that a 50KW system is 200 kWh? Because the requirement of s.g.i.p. is to run at the rated power for 2 hours or more. You don't go to 100% battery charge and then down to 0% with Li-Ion batteries. And if 100 kWh powerpacks are just that, 100 kWh, then somehow they must meet this 2-hour requirement. Some recent project additions are for power ratings of 242.5 KW which is not the typical round-number that has been used (50, 100, 200, 800, etc.)

The 242.5KW systems have eligible costs of $730,000 - or $3010/KW.
We don't know the full size in kWh of such installs but it must be at least 220% of the KW rating. If they go with just a slight buffer, then that is 500 kWh but won't run for 2-hours at 242.5KW for long as batteries will lose capacity over time. I think s.g.i.p. should require the 2-hour power output production at rated-power for their installation sign-off and at 2 years after install as well (700+ cycles). If a $730,000 system of 242.5KW uses 600kWh of powerpacks (6 of them), then that is $1216 per kWh. These systems reserve $424,860 per install, so you can see much of the project is easily paid for by the s.g.i.p. funds.

Going back in the s.g.i.p. data - you can find systems with much higher prices per KW so the prices are dropping. Other companies need to react to these prices or be priced out of the market. I think Tesla is charging "too little" for the systems today. Even at $30,000 for 100 kWh, they are ahead of the competition by a large margin.