Tesla Pays Powerwall Owners to Form 'Virtual Power Plant' in California (electrek.co) 192
"Tesla has launched a new virtual power plant in partnership with PG&E in California that will pay Powerwalls owners to help stabilize the electric grid and end brownouts in California," reports Electrek.
A virtual power plant (VPP) consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants.
PC Magazine notes the program was launched in conjunction with California power utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company: As well as the personal feeling of satisfaction for helping to stabilize California's grid, you'll receive $2 for every additional kilowatt-hour delivered during designated "events," such as any time grid operator CAISO issues an energy alert, warning, or emergency. Contributors will receive push notifications before and during an event with details of its expected start and finish times. Once an event is over, each Powerwall will automatically resume normal operation.
Electrek adds that "The $2 per kWh amount is quite significant and reflects just how much value a Virtual Power Plant can add to the grid in case of an emergency event where the grid needs more capacity. Depending on the events and the number of Powerwalls homeowners have, they could earn anywhere from $10 to $60 per event or even more for bigger systems."
But in addition, "Tesla will dispatch your Powerwall when the grid is in critical need of additional power. That is when the least efficient generators would typically come online."
And you get the distinction of being pat of "the largest distributed battery in the world — potentially over 50,000 Powerwalls.... Tesla said that it has about 50,000 Powerwalls that could be eligible for this VPP, which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity than can be distributed in any event... [I]t is basically going to turn the company into a major decentralized electric utility. It's already in operation in Australia. Now it's in California, and soon it is going to be in Texas."
PC Magazine notes the program was launched in conjunction with California power utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company: As well as the personal feeling of satisfaction for helping to stabilize California's grid, you'll receive $2 for every additional kilowatt-hour delivered during designated "events," such as any time grid operator CAISO issues an energy alert, warning, or emergency. Contributors will receive push notifications before and during an event with details of its expected start and finish times. Once an event is over, each Powerwall will automatically resume normal operation.
Electrek adds that "The $2 per kWh amount is quite significant and reflects just how much value a Virtual Power Plant can add to the grid in case of an emergency event where the grid needs more capacity. Depending on the events and the number of Powerwalls homeowners have, they could earn anywhere from $10 to $60 per event or even more for bigger systems."
But in addition, "Tesla will dispatch your Powerwall when the grid is in critical need of additional power. That is when the least efficient generators would typically come online."
And you get the distinction of being pat of "the largest distributed battery in the world — potentially over 50,000 Powerwalls.... Tesla said that it has about 50,000 Powerwalls that could be eligible for this VPP, which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity than can be distributed in any event... [I]t is basically going to turn the company into a major decentralized electric utility. It's already in operation in Australia. Now it's in California, and soon it is going to be in Texas."
How much do they pay? (Score:2)
Presumably they get paid of course? I personally wouldn't donate my kilowatts for that for free, especially given most of mine come from rooftop solar. Those batteries aren't cheap and I wouldn't give free electricity to a power company that routinely overcharges me for what is probably the most unreliable grid in the US.
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Typing this post took you more effort than it would have taken you to read the answer in the article summary.
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Presumably they get paid of course?
Not presumably, it's right there in TFS title: "Tesla Pays Powerwall Owners ..."
*and* in TFS:
"Tesla has launched a new virtual power plant in partnership with PG&E in California that will pay Powerwalls owners ...
Presumably, it's in TFA ... :-)
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One who is able to read a summary could tell you if they get paid or not.
But I do not like to tell you for free ...
Can you even math? (Score:5, Informative)
$2 a KWh is 8 times higher than the 25c/KWh that is the California state average price for electricity.
Supposing the 13.5KWh Tesla Powerwall cost you $10k installed. Ignoring completely any tax credits, amortized over 10 years it's going to cost you $1K per annum. The expected capacity loss of a powerwall over 10 years is 10%, and its stated round-trip efficiency is 92.5%. So, every time you fill your Powerwall at 25c/KWh and selling 92.5% back at $2/KWh you're making ($2*0.925)-$0.25=$1.6/KWh. So you can expect to make (100-90)/2 *13.5*$1.6=~ $20.5 every time. So if your Powerwall is called upon for 49 days a year for those 10 years, it's paid for itself.
Compare that to *any* other way to pay for a Powerwall, and you'll soon realize that this is a major winner. Do the math on the marginal efficiency gains that it can bring to a solar array. If you're 1:1 net-metered (like I am), a battery can never win. (That 92.5% efficiency is pure loss). If you're buying at retail and selling back at wholesale (at e.g. 50%), then your battery can only make 50% of your retail electricity cost, i.e. ~12.5c/KWh. This scheme is making 640% of retail cost. It's massive.
To be brutally honest, this exemplifies who Powerwalls (or other home batteries) benefit the most - the power companies.
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What most /. - ers don't want to grasp: you get paid both ways. :P
You get paid when discharge your battery to fill a gap in demand.
You get paid when you charge your battery to eat of surplus from the grid. That is what the so hated negative prices are about. Perhaps one of the nitpickers that we have sometimes negative prices on the markets in Europe, grasp now the idea/concept behind it
But honestly: I doubt it.
So: you are not selling 1kWh for $1.75 profit (at least not usually), you are selling it for $4.0
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Can you even read? (Score:2)
if this was profitable, you would have commercial battery stations popping up all over place
They wouldn't be authorized for the program - Tesla cells are. Because the utility and Tesla knows exactly how they will behave, and all the utility has to do is to create an integration with Tesla who in turn tells all of the batteries participating to start sending power instead of receiving.
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It is the other way around.
Tesla is integrating with the utility, as Tesla is now a balancing power provider. Just like any "pumped storage". The utility only needs a way to signal what it wants to happen over the next minutes, hours.
Re:Can you even math? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are already commercial battery stations being built in PGE territory.
This is offering a new option for the occasional even higher loads as opposed to the daily peaking loads being supplied by utility scale battery installations. Sometimes /. posters are really excessively cynical.
Most of the time the powerwalls are doing service to the owners who bought them, but occasionally they can rent them to the utility by clicking a button. They get paid and the utility avoids paying egregious fossil fuel prices, or more correctly its rate payers do. There was little additional capital investment needed. What's the problem? It's an economically efficient deployment of existing capital to meet market demand using technology and communications.
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It's an economically efficient deployment of existing capital to meet market demand using technology and communications.
The field of economics at it's finest.
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If this was profitable, you would have commercial battery stations popping up all over place
If this wasn't profitable, they wouldn't be doing it. Tesla isn't running a charity.
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If this was profitable, you would have commercial battery stations popping up all over place
If this wasn't profitable, they wouldn't be doing it. Tesla isn't running a charity.
Tesla isn't signing up for this service either, instead they are selling batteries to customers and courage them to sign up for this.
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Everyone with a few brain cells either knows how the scheme works or can figure it himself.
i) you need scale - a few hundred mega watts upwards - or do you think a utility will make a contract with you for your punny 10kWh or 15kWh battery?
ii) you need a switchbox, connected to the internet, that is controlled from the outside, which tells your battery to either charge from the grid or discharge into the grid
iii) you need a "governor" who knows all the batteries aggregated into the VPP
iv) that governor is
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Oh, you mean like this [pge.com]?
Not the cheapest Chinese-made batteries because they actually plan to use it and maintain operability for years. So what were you saying again?
It's not even remotely paying for the PowerWall (Score:2)
Read the Electrek piece and look at the example. The estimate provided in the example states "you could earn at least $129", total, for 7 different outage events.
They're obviously planning to only take a very small amount from each PowerWall owner.
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Specific to California, you seem to be ignoring the time-of-use issues with NEM2. While the battery is benefiting the utility (minor benefit to the consumer in being able to deploy more solar), the tariffs are designed so that without a battery there is no payback.
Re:Can you even math? (Score:4, Informative)
Alternatively, you paid $10K so you can enjoy AC during outages and brownouts. Instead, this drains your wall in 5 minutes every outage, leaving you sweating remaining 4 hours at 110F.
So don't click the little button that says you want to do this.
Wow! Crisis averted.
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Alternatively, you paid $10K so you can enjoy AC during outages and brownouts. Instead, this drains your wall in 5 minutes every outage, leaving you sweating remaining 4 hours at 110F.
So don't click the little button that says you want to do this.
Wow! Crisis averted.
Yeah, basically this is good for people who don't actually live in their homes.
Re: Can you even math? (Score:2)
Re:Can you even click? (Score:2)
Can you even math?
Evidence says no you can't.
Can you even click the correct "Reply to This" button?
Evidence shows you can't.
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Re:Can you even math? (Score:4, Insightful)
These things are starting to pop up down under, where you have a battery plugged into the wholesale grid, buy cheap (or charge via solar) and sell when there's peak demand. If I had spare cash I'd be all over it, especially right now with 1/4 of our coal plants down for maintenance, there's a lot of demand at peak times.
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The whole point of this is to prevent brownouts by stabilizing the grid. It may not prevent the need for rolling blackouts, but it could prevent a catastrophic one. Would you rather have backup power in an outage or no outage while getting paid?
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Would you rather have backup power in an outage or no outage while getting paid?
This is false choice. You are forgetting that I would rather have backup power in an outage.
If I invest my money into mitigating effects of blackouts and brownouts, something that a functional grid that I pay for through bills and taxes should prevent, then my primary goal is to make sure I have power.
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So don't opt in?
Re: How much do they pay? (Score:3)
No one is going to get paid $2/kWh for 100% battery wear. There is only a small number of such emergency days per year. The Powerwall has a 13.5 kWh capacity. This might result in a $100/year rebate for each owner, assuming they are all fully charged on those days in question. It would take centuries at that rate to recoup the powerwall costs, assuming you leave the Powerwall unused on all non-emergency days.
PG&E changes their rates every 3 months, and this program isn't likely to still exist in this fo
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Just get a natural gas generator
Yeah, I'll pass. :-p [ycharts.com]
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Uh where do you live that electricity is so unreliable that you will be running your natural gas generator for more than a few days per year?
"Days"? It's hours per year at worst.
the natural gas generator is a cheaper/easier way to have backup power
Actually a gasoline generator is a much cheaper way to have backup power in my area. But Powerwall really isn't a backup power solution; it's too expensive for that. It's much better for time shifting in insular solar-powered microgrids.
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"Days"? It's hours per year at worst.
It is hours per day, not hours per year. I suggest to google the term "balancing power".
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Higher maintenance costs as well. Not only more frequent oil changes but if you leave gas in the machine for more then a month or 2, the carb or injectors will need cleaning. Modern gasoline does not keep.
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It is not called "backup power" it is called "balancing power", I suggest to google that term.
an LNG or propane (since we don't have gas lines in warmer climates) generator is easier and more cost-effective. Perhaps for an individual (household) - no idea. But most certainly not for the grid operator. Or should he sponsor 1000ds of people having an LNG/propane gas generator, and the internet connections to switch them on and off when needed?
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Outside of California, nobody has a power wall because grid-tied solar is priced (arguably subsidized) such that having your own battery isn't necessary. In the non-Calif
Re: How much do they pay? (Score:4, Interesting)
13.5kWh is the gross capacity of the battery, you can't actually use that much because some of it is reserved to prevent charging to 100%, and over-discharging.
This is an interesting idea and the power companies have missed an opportunity to set it up themselves. In the UK some have been experimenting with Vehicle 2 Grid (V2G) which does a similar thing with your car battery.
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I know where I'll get my money from.
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Re:How much do they pay? (Score:5, Informative)
In that case you *should* accept as many kWh you can at $2 since they're not only profitable but make it more likely for your system to fail within the warranty period.
Fundamentally I think these schemes are a dangerous mistake. Not only are you offloading responsibility for grid stability to a hive collective you are creating a whole new market of perverse incentives in which it is in the financial interests of individuals to do the exact opposite of conservation where needed in order to bring about profitable conditions.
There should at least be an open protocol / market for the selling back of stored energy not vendors ripping you off even more by getting a cut from the operation of your investment without providing any meaningful value in return.
To give you some idea of what I meant when I said powerwall is a ripoff. It's 13kWh @ $8500
You can buy rack mount 11kWh batteries with an inherently safer LFP chemistry for $3500.
https://trophybattery.com/ [trophybattery.com]
Solar inverters (Tesla's is only 5KW) cost another $1500 for $5000 total.
Need more capacity for off grid or charging your EV fleet? Add another 11kWh battery to your rack for an additional $3500 and a couple of battery cables. With powerwall the answer is spend another $8500.
You also pay a premium on installation and supporting infrastructure as this is only available from Tesla partners.
Re: How much do they pay? (Score:2)
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Personally I'm in Phoenix, whose grid availability is the highest in the country (source [eia.gov],) so there's little use for a battery to begin with, and the electricity varies between 7 cents per kw to 11 cents per kw. Unless you're on solar, then it's somewhere between 3.6 cents per kw to 6.5 cents per kw, plus a $30 grid connect fee.
Battery would be for all the disasters climate change will be sending your way.
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:3, Interesting)
Currently if you get a tesla Powerwall you are not allowed to charge it during off-peak hours from the grid, only from your solar panels. Get rid of that scam and I might be interested.
Re: I'll believe it when I see it (Score:2)
I believe if you buy it unsubsidized, you can charge it any time you like. The subsidies come with conditions about charging from renewable sources.
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Nope, looked into it, they have it locked into the code and the contract. PG&E makes too much money selling you power during peak hours, it's quadrupole price during prime time. They even force you into a peak-hours plan if you get solar panels, to further punish/profit off of solar owners.
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Your post makes no sense.
Particularly as home customers have a fixed price and are completely unaffected by peak or not peak.
Perhaps you could give some links about your "contract constructs" people "get forced into"?
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Particularly as home customers have a fixed price and are completely unaffected by peak or not peak.
Last I looked in California, a home customer had the choice whether to have time of use metering. It was implemented with the smart meters. I can't speak to anywhere else. I was under the impression it was required if you wanted to sell power back to PG&E.
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Then you have a peak and off-peak tariff.
And not a market bound tariff that arbitrarily can change.
Or do I miss something?
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What is a TOU rate?
And how does it work in selling power to the utility versus buying power from it?
Which is what I, as a solar customer, was forced into.
Then why did you agree to the deal?
According to the site you linked you have net metering ... obviously that is conflicting to the idea that one way of energy flow costs/yields more than the other way.
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You are incorrect. You may need to get Tesla to unlock the ability (as most people go for the subsidy), but it isn't a problem.
Personally though I would much rather go for a LFP server rack battery setup with inverter than a Powerwall. Being able to actually control it to run as you wish is an added perk.
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Maybe a Franklin [youtu.be]?
Re: I'll believe it when I see it (Score:2)
Maybe in California.... I live in Tx. I charge my battery during off peak, and release it during the expensive peak. And i donâ(TM)t have solar.
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If that is true, then it has nothing to do with "Tesla" but with the Grid operator.
And bottom line that would be utter stupid - so I doubt you are right.
So that's $2000 per MWh (Score:2)
Typical wholesale price for electricity is $50 (coal) to $500 (natural gas peaker) per MWh. This scheme will pay $2000 per MWh. That's nice.
Re: So that's $2000 per MWh (Score:2)
Wholesale generation is a minority of electricity costs in California. Distribution is the majority.
Fossil fuel costs also don't account for their societal costs related to various types of emissions, such as Healthcare.
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It's terribly wasteful as electricity is generated and dumped but necessary for grid stability. ...
Basically "spinning reserves" are a myth. No one is really doing that. And if you have some: they do not generate electricity that needs to be dumbed
Get a clue about the topic, read some wikipedia ...
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That peaker plant in an energy crunch is going to get over $2k/MWh; it is the only way they are economically viable.
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Ah, OK, in Australia the maximum price is capped at around USD1000/MWh, and some gas peaker operators are pointing out this is not enough.
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Is that for energy or ancillary grid services? Rapid response power is golden in the US, but much of the money comes from ancillary services.
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This doesn't run for typical wholesale prices. It runs for temporary peaks in spot price, the kind of which can easily exceed and have many times in the past a whole order of magnitude higher cost.
Electricity at $2/kWh???? (Score:2)
I just checked my electric bill. 1326 kWh cost me $243, or $0.18 per kWh.
Who can afford electricity at $2/kWh? And are they suggesting that the all-in cost of electricity from a power wall costs $2/kWh?
How is that competitive with any other electricity provider?
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Clearly you have no idea how grid management is done. Most of the generation is very cheap (baseload) and modest peaks can be accommodated by relatively efficient dispatchable sources, then, in the highest of the peaks, generators that are inefficient but quick to start are used. The electricity from the last sources is expensive, and that's the only source that Tesla is attempting to replace.
Betwee
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If you're a wide area grid manager trying to match generation to load within a +/- 1% literally on a per-second basis, you will pay $2/kwh for near instant, on-demand power than can also act as a load to absorb power spikes.
The alternative is you can't maintain that balance, and if/when you fail to make ends meet you either get brownouts/rolling blackouts or you start popping circuit breakers at your substations... which leads to rolling blackouts.
Grid scale storage solves that problem, especially when it's
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Who can afford electricity at $2/kWh?
The power company who is paying you the $2/kWh can afford it. Or what do you think their costs would be to fire up a coal plant and only let it run 2h?
Re: Electricity at $2/kWh???? (Score:2)
Coal is 0.17% of the CA power mix, so it's not part of the discussion. CA uses natural has generators during peak grid usage periods.
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It does not matter what they use.
The argument is the same, (* facepalm *)
It is cheaper for the utility to first STORE power at your place and then PAY to RETRIEVE it, then to "fire up" what ever plant they use to create the energy on demand - if that is even possible in a short notice.
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Basi
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Better if they allowed small scale wind [youtu.be] or hydro [youtu.be] too.
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The backup generators during high power draw are less efficient than the fulltime generators.
That is wrong. They have the exact same efficiency.
And it is not called "back up". Back up implies something failed, and you need a "replacement".
Those VPP's are balancing power plants, and balancing power plants have absolutely nothing to do with "emergency" back up plants.
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I just checked my electric bill.
Why did you check your electricity bill? It is a retail cost for housing, it is not even remotely related to the current electricity cost on the market.
People are insanely insulated from what is actually going on in their energy market. In our market I pay 25c/kWh, but a hair over 80 times in the past year the actual spot cost of electricity was above $13/kWh. And on several occasions our regulator stepped in to suspend spot trading due to runaway cost increases.
I remember one day reading in the news of one
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When I make a call with my cell phone, I'm not charged separately for incoming calls nor outgoing. However, every single terminated call is charged from one carrier to the other. Some calls are more expensive than others. In the end, they work out a base price for the consumer so that they don't lose money but get a consistent price. Same for power. During the delay from demand rise to the NG generator coming online, they need very expensive balancing power.
They are asking... for now (Score:2)
Save Diablo Canyon (Score:3)
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Once we can work out the economics. [youtu.be]
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NOT ONE PROBLEM except for the protesters that jammed up the local highways on the way to the plant.
Cool... OTOH with nuclear, just one problem is all it takes.
A whole 500Mw?! (Score:2)
which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity
Ok gang. Let's put that number into perspective.
I'm going to point to ONE generation plant... Hoover dam; 2.2 Gwh
And today, that is not enough to even power Las Vegas.
Shall we all go stand by the ocean and spit to see how much that raises sea level?
This is the issue... One, ten MANY!
When it get's to many, we lose all perspective and start going ohhh ahhh.
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I'm going to point to ONE generation plant... Hoover dam; 2.2 Gwh
Cool story. So you don't know the difference between base load and an on demand peaking plant. Let's give you another chance to pick a relevant example.
You can start with this quote to educate yourself: "Tesla will dispatch your Powerwall when the grid is in critical need of additional power"
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Oh... I know the difference. I built a system to do this using banks of LiFePo batteries. As a result I also understand the scale that's being discussed and how rateup/down actually works within CAISO and how many peakers are called in in rate events and where they actually have to be to be effective in relation to the grid.
Again 500Mw is nothing.
Stand around the ocean and spit in it an tell me you made sea level rise.
Power Walls contain inverters? (Score:2)
This implies that PowerWalls contain inverters, to be able to push power to the grid. I don't know about California, but where I live, that requires special permits and hardware to cut your house off from the grid in the event of a power failure.
Imagine: a power line gets cut. An electrician comes out to fix it, expects the back end of the cut cable to be dead, but your inverter is pushing power. Fried electrician.
If PowerWalls have this ability, were they permitted and installed properly?
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In every other country, it is pretty obvious that a "power wall" has an inverter. Otherwise your house appliances would not run.
In case the power wall is connected to the grid, it is obvious, that it can feed into that grid via the inverter.
No fried electrician. As they know this shit. Fearmonger very much?
Question: Which demand wins... (Score:2)
When CALISO needs power, AND a Powerwall owner needs to power his home and charge his Tesla overnight in order to be ready for work the next day?
Asking for a friend...
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Grid stabilization needs are high during peak daytime hours and low during nighttime hours.
Depends how you measure.
If you measure in Mw or Gw, you are right. At night you need less of them versus daytime or peaks.
But: if you measure in "how many responses do I have to make to load changes", you are wrong: it is exactly the same. Fridges pop on and pop of during night more or less the same as during day time. Etc. p.p.
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Asking for a friend...
I won't question why you're friends with ignorant idiots. But to help you along:
a) neither wins because your scenario isn't at all actually what happens.
b) the end user ops in, so even if your "friend" wakes from his drooling stupor long enough to engage a brain cell they could very much opt out if they so choose.
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