Musk's Powerwall

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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ScottL
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Musk's Powerwall

Post by ScottL »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k

Interesting stuff. The rack he shows looks to be a standard 42u unit. Looks pretty cool so far.

Robthebob
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Robthebob »

aw, beat me to it.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

GIThruster
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by GIThruster »

Very impressive. No matter how you think about the AGW and carbon issue, it should be obvious that going pure solar/electric is worth investigation. I can see he glossed over some of the difficulties, such as procuring lithium on this scale, but this is the plan we should have had back starting in the 1970's when OPEC first started sticking it to the rest of the world. We didn't have LiPo's back then, but we have for many years now and this is a scheme that's time has come.

Count me in full support, until the real world data says this is more trouble than we've been assured.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Robthebob
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Robthebob »

A few things to point out.

- Did this guy solve the battery problem or did he just get the best current technology and make it look pretty?
- There was another guy on TED a few years ago doing like some sort of chemical metalization method for batteries, which would allow for industrial level energy storage. I believe for a home, it would be a car size battery. For a home, the Powerwall is poster size, so definitely a lot of differences.
- What's the Powerwall made from? 2,000,000,000 power packs is not a joke if they're all made from some rare earth metal that we don't have.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

GIThruster
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by GIThruster »

It's certainly a lithium battery, as this is what Tesla's giga-factory was designed to build. Are they better than other LiPos? Probably not in their power density or energy density, but reportedly in their cost, and it is the cost of LiPos that makes them unattractive for things like electric cars.

Musk's whole point in designing the Tesla cars and the new power packs is that they can be had for vastly less than we pay for them now. One of his regular talking points on being an entrpreneur has always been that if you intend to build anything, make sure it is not only better than the competition, but MUCH better. His version of a better battery no doubt wastes less internal space between cells than other batteries, but also drops the price hugely. This is the plan. Now that he;'s gone public with the 10 KWh pack for $3,500, people can compare and see if what he's saying is coming to pass. The Tesla Roadster uses a 53kWh battery, so we're talking about $15k for the new battery based on this technology. Knowing just how many charges one can get on it before needing to replace it, is key to knowing whether we have a real leap in technology here, but as these details emerge, I think what we'll find is the economies of scale Musk is expecting are what drives a cheaper battery, that can be used economically in hundreds of different scenarios.

Time will tell, but $15k is not too much for the Roadster battery replacement. This should drop the cost of the cars significantly.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

ScottL
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by ScottL »

At the end of the day he's selling batteries which can be charged from any number of sources. As for the tech behind the batteries, well it could be anything really. I have a feeling Musk has a keen eye for promising research and is cashing in early on talent. The time is now to get the ball rolling and I think this satisfies both sides of the climate debate.

KitemanSA
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by KitemanSA »

Remember, Large Scale Storage can make every load look like base load, andnothing does baseload like nuclear power.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Tom Ligon »

As a guy in the market to upgrade the capacity and storage on an off-the-grid PV system at my weekend place in West Virginia, I was interested.

The system has two versions at the moment, one for $3k and the other for $3,500. http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

The cheaper one (7 kWh) is intended for load leveling during the day, and the other (10 kWh) is intended for backup. The technical specs look good on them but they are incompatible with what I have now. Their battery is 350-450 volts. No inverter is included, so this is not a turnkey system as presented on their website, and I'm only familiar with lower-voltage charge controllers and inverters. I'd need a totally new system. It looks like a good battery in a nice package, but the voltage limits the applications, and it needs compatible charge controllers and inverters. PV systems in this voltage range are not unheard of, but more than a little scary due to the difficulty in turning off DC at these voltages, and you cannot find electrical hardware at Home Depot to do it.

But it got me looking and it turns out there are some drop-in replacement batteries for car batteries available in the lithium-ion chemistries. I could get a 12.6 V 100 AH battery (1260 watt-hours) for around $1200. That's about 10x as much as a pair of golf cart batteries with twice the capacity but which should not be deep discharged anywhere near what a lithium ion battery can stand (i.e. a 200 AH lead acid really should not be used as more than about 100 AH, and even that will shorten the life). Looking into the life cycle costs, for cooler climates (WV qualifies) the lead acid types are slightly more economical than lithium ion. In hotter climates, lead acid has a falloff in life, and lithium ion starts making sense. But they're close enough that I may start shopping for lithium ion.

paperburn1
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by paperburn1 »

Load leveling is the key,Here in NC if you keep your KWH low you can get a really good rate for power. half of a unlimited demand rate. It could in theory pay back in 5 years under this application.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

KitemanSA
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by KitemanSA »

paperburn1 wrote:Load leveling is the key,Here in NC if you keep your KWH low you can get a really good rate for power. half of a unlimited demand rate. It could in theory pay back in 5 years under this application.
Ummm... Keep your kW low?

Tom Ligon
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Tom Ligon »

KitemanSA wrote:
paperburn1 wrote:Load leveling is the key,Here in NC if you keep your KWH low you can get a really good rate for power. half of a unlimited demand rate. It could in theory pay back in 5 years under this application.
Ummm... Keep your kW low?
Hence, my problem justifying it. Our WV mountain hideout went "on the grid" shortly before I went out to San Diego. My wife did not want to fiddle with batteries or the generator. Since then, our typical monthly power bill has been $7. I think we hit $15 one month when we started enjoying a small window AC unit in the bedroom one hot summer. I believe $7 is their minimum bill, so reducing our bill is only possible by going off the grid again. Which certainly would be possible with this battery, plus an upgrade of my PV array, a new charge controller, and new inverters.

Tesla assumes a lighting load that seems to be based on incandescent. Those bulbs are getting hard to find. The cabin is mostly CF with some LED now, with about 1/4 the power draw. I have not looked closely at the remainder of the Tesla load assumptions but they may be high. I'm flabbergasted by how little power our latest refrigerator draws, for example, and it is nothing special by modern standards.

mvanwink5
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by mvanwink5 »

You draw your water by hand at your cabin? :lol:
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Tom Ligon »

mvanwink5 wrote:You draw your water by hand at your cabin? :lol:
Deep well pump. But before we went on the grid, we ran that and power tools with an Onan 7.5 JB propane powered generator.

Musk's battery can drive an inverter that would power the pump (inverters that size were hard to find when we set up the original system, but they are common today). Its just that the payback time at $7 a month is over 40 years, and I'll be over a hundred by that time. My wife ain't taking the bait. Me, I figure it would be a fun project.

Skipjack
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Skipjack »

I might not have heard it right, but I thought Musk said during the presentation that the inverter is part of the system.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Musk's Powerwall

Post by Tom Ligon »

Skipjack wrote:I might not have heard it right, but I thought Musk said during the presentation that the inverter is part of the system.
Per the Tesla website:

Installation
Requires installation by a trained electrician. DC-AC inverter not included.

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