Gerasimental
Member
inertia is a very good term for the problem I see with stationary.
IMO, if it's meant to be stationary then the more inertia the better!
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inertia is a very good term for the problem I see with stationary.
Actually, after M3 comes into the picture both ASP and kWh will go down, so the result will not change much. Most importantly, though, I was intentionally taking the case of the maximum per kWh profit for automotive segment. The point I am trying to get across is that we have a unique situation which makes stationary storage an absolute killer of a potential profit machine for Tesla. The paradox is that while there is some work to do to drive the price point of the batteries down to make EVs outright cost competitive with ICE, in case of grid storage the price point of the batteries is **already** well below the parity threshold.
It is inertia, **not cost** that keep grid storage from massive large scale adoption. So the grid storage opportunity that lies in front of Tesla is enormous, yet nobody really put a price on it. I suspect that a lot of analysts do not understand it, and those who do just stupefied by the enormity of it and wait in awe and disbelief until somebody provides external confirmation for them, just to make sure that they did not go crazy...
If grid storage is allready competitive now (as it obviously is, if peaking power plant costs more than 800$/kWh), why aren't utilities then using them?
GE has offered them without success. I believe GE is very trusted name, so that can't be the problem.
We may be talking past each other. All I was trying to say is that, in most of the country, there isn't a "utility side." If you're behind the meter (retail) then you can't be paid for regulation or storage. If you're in front of the meter, it's the RTO, not the utility, that needs to pay you. It may be possible (indeed, necessary if EPSA isn't overturned by the SCOTUS) for the distribution utility to bundle retail customers and offer that bundle to the RTO market, but it will be the RTO that is the paymaster in the end. It's a very different market structure than you have in Georgia, James.Thanks, Robert. I still don't get why the RTO level would be the best place to put storage. On the utility side, frequency regulation and distributed storage seem to create more economic value. Intuitively, I don't know why I would want to submit stored energy to transmission losses. Moreover, I want to place some value on reliability of service to end users. So highly distributed storage pays transmission costs when charging, but is reliable and locally available when discharging. It seems that rate arbitrage should work just as well whether centralized or distributed.
The corporate market for Tesla could be huge. Chowdhry said that both Google and Apple had Tesla battery backup systems installed at their corporate campuses in California, but both companies declined to comment when contacted. WalMart is already in talks with Tesla, according to Bloomberg.
I agree. When i first heard of stationary storage a few months ago (searching for the articles now), I thought the article mentioned MUCH cheaper prices like $1500-$3000. If they want to sell like hotcakes and be competitive, I think they would have to come in under $5000. Otherwise, it would be cheaper to just get a natural gas generator, such as Generac. I guess it depends on the customer though. Customers with solar would prefer the battery but other customers who are just trying to be prepared for power outages could just go the Generac route (assuming they have natural gas) if the Tesla battery ends up costing $13kSaw the article. I hope it's false. That price is something like twice what it should be. Lets say $180 x 10 = 1800 for the batteries, inverter and battery management another 600, another 1000 for administrative and installation, another 25% profit that gets you to 4250.
I could see even 6000 if they actually pay much more for the batteries, or if they want to cover hefty R&D costs with more profit. But 13k? No way.
It's just not disruptive at that price.
If you buy a generator for earthquake preparedness, like me, a battery pack would be preferable. I have a generator, but in an earthquake, gas lines are perhaps even more likely to be interrupted than electrical lines. A battery pack is also faster and easier to connect for short term outages. Any time there is an interruption, I wonder is it coming right back on, is it worth connecting and starting the generator and throwing the transfer switch. A battery is just one quick switch on or off.
We may be talking past each other. All I was trying to say is that, in most of the country, there isn't a "utility side." If you're behind the meter (retail) then you can't be paid for regulation or storage. If you're in front of the meter, it's the RTO, not the utility, that needs to pay you. It may be possible (indeed, necessary if EPSA isn't overturned by the SCOTUS) for the distribution utility to bundle retail customers and offer that bundle to the RTO market, but it will be the RTO that is the paymaster in the end. It's a very different market structure than you have in Georgia, James.
You bring up a good point about earthquakes but most parts of the world don't really have to consider earthquakes. Living in the Plains and Rocky Mountain states for most of my life, the only time the power has ever gone out for more than a few minutes has been due to weather such as tornadoes or heavy snow. These weather related incidents can knock out power lines but would almost never affect natural gas lines. While I am interested in Tesla batteries for home storage, there's no way I'd pay anywhere near $13500 for a device that I would probably need for a couple minutes per year, if that. By the way, the natural gas Generac generators that I was referring to are tied into your household electrical system and automatically provide power instantly if the electricity goes out, just as a battery backup would. I wasn't referring to a small, portable generator which would require a manual switchover.If you buy a generator for earthquake preparedness, like me, a battery pack would be preferable. I have a generator, but in an earthquake, gas lines are perhaps even more likely to be interrupted than electrical lines. A battery pack is also faster and easier to connect for short term outages. Any time there is an interruption, I wonder is it coming right back on, is it worth connecting and starting the generator and throwing the transfer switch. A battery is just one quick switch on or off.
Great work, vgrin! Are you able to estimate profits using your models of Tesla's cost per kWh?
Is Tesla paid the incentive? That wouldn't make sense, shouldn't the system buyer get the incentive for the project?
presumably, solar city is the buyer for home systems and then leases it to the homeowner. For commercial, could be the same using the $1B in Credit Suisse money vehicle. But margins are based on what is left from the project costs that flow into Tesla. Solar city could pay them strongly due to the heavy incentive money of $1.75 per watt state incentives. CA is being very good to both companies and I have to think both are going to do as much as possible in those projects already on the SGIP project log as possible to garner the profit potential. But is it a little disturbing to hear one talk about battery prices dropping quickly and then reviewing some project costs and see that the projects hit numbers like $1000-2000 and higher per kWh? There may be loopholes and other advantages in the SGIP system that they can take advantage of now before any changes come to the system. I also think there is a chance of some projects outlined to be cancelled, while others are added. I noticed recent additions were 100 KW with a project price of $100,000. And $60,000 incentive. Wow, lot of incentive there. Compared to ZEV, it is huge. SGIP opened the door for battery storage and didn't factor in small, nimble and high powered Li-Ion being able to do things as cheaply as that. I hope they cancel some of the 2012 and 2013 projects which are $2000 per kWh (not KW, but kWh) and move to newer and cheaper project technology so more kWh are brought online per dollar. The 3000KW system logged in from 2012 could be done a lot cheaper than $12 million.
Upon final approval of the incentive claim documentation and completed field verification visit, the Program Administrator will issue a final approval letter. The incentive payment will be made in approximately 30 days from the date the final approval letter was sent. Payment will be made to the Host Customer, System Owner, or a third party as indicated on the Incentive Claim Form and will be mailed to the address provided.
The SGIP data are indicative of the status of the project as far as the stage of SGIP application is concerned, so it is not possible to evaluate when all of those 607 projects totaling 0.13GWh are going to be installed and Tesla able to book the profits. That is why in my table above I included the totals for the projects that had SGIP incentive was paid so far. According to the SGIP rules the payment can't be made until the installation is verified during the Site visit.
Most importantly, the data gleaned from the SGIP Site are not inconsistent with my speculation up thread that we will not see Tesla stationary storage pricing less than $400-500 per kWh any time soon, and this will allow Tesla an incredible feat of pulling as much profit from the stationary storage, per kWh, as they make in the automotive segment, although the top line for stationary storage could be 2 times or more less that for the cars. In another words stationary storage will have much higher net margins.