1,500 Tesla Powerwall Owners Have Already Joined the New Virtual Power Plant In California (electrek.co) 161
PG&E announced that more than 1,500 Tesla Powerwall owners have already decided to joined the new virtual power plant it launched in partnership with Tesla in California. Electrek reports: 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. Last year, Tesla launched a test VPP in California, where Powerwall owners would join in voluntarily without compensation to let the VPP pull power from their battery packs when the grid needed it. Last month, Tesla and PG&E, a large electric utility company in Northern California, announced the launch of a new commercial VPP where homeowners with Powerwalls would get compensated for helping the grid with the energy in their battery packs.
PG&E has now released an update on the virtual power plant and said that more than 1,500 Tesla Powerwall owners have already joined the program: "On June 22, Tesla invited approximately 25,000 PG&E customers with Powerwalls to join the VPP and help form the world's largest distributed battery. In the first two weeks of the new program, more than 3,000 customers have expressed interest in enrolling, with more than 1,500 customers officially in the program." With an average of two Powerwalls per customer, the VPP most likely already has a 13 MW load capacity. PG&E says that if all eligible Powerwall owners join, the VPP would have the available megawatts equivalent to "the energy generated by a small power plant." Tesla Powerwall owners can join through the Tesla app and receive $2 per kWh that they send back to the grid during emergency events. "Enabling Powerwall customers to support the grid and their community is a necessary and important part of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy," said Drew Baglino, senior vice president of Powertrain and Energy Engineering at Tesla. "We seek to partner with utilities and regulators everywhere to unlock the full potential of storage to bring more renewable, resilient, and less costly electricity to everyone."
PG&E has now released an update on the virtual power plant and said that more than 1,500 Tesla Powerwall owners have already joined the program: "On June 22, Tesla invited approximately 25,000 PG&E customers with Powerwalls to join the VPP and help form the world's largest distributed battery. In the first two weeks of the new program, more than 3,000 customers have expressed interest in enrolling, with more than 1,500 customers officially in the program." With an average of two Powerwalls per customer, the VPP most likely already has a 13 MW load capacity. PG&E says that if all eligible Powerwall owners join, the VPP would have the available megawatts equivalent to "the energy generated by a small power plant." Tesla Powerwall owners can join through the Tesla app and receive $2 per kWh that they send back to the grid during emergency events. "Enabling Powerwall customers to support the grid and their community is a necessary and important part of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy," said Drew Baglino, senior vice president of Powertrain and Energy Engineering at Tesla. "We seek to partner with utilities and regulators everywhere to unlock the full potential of storage to bring more renewable, resilient, and less costly electricity to everyone."
Lost in the language (Score:2, Informative)
Virtual? Not really. Distributed? Not exactly either. More like crowdsourced energy capacitors.
Re: Lost in the language (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s an accounting trick PGE will use to claim they have more green capacity than they actually have. It will be another 13MW of solar they do not build. And then they will be surprised when they do not have the capacity in summer.
But you are correct, it is not a power plant it is a storage system. You have to put the MWh in and then you have to take it back out, twice the transport costs/losses. Ultimately you are robbing Peter to pay Paul, because every Wh you take out is a Wh the owners cannot c
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If a customer is in a rolling outage, they are not providing power to the grid. However, this could help prevent them. In the end, the customer still has power and they're getting well compensated for it. Money they can put toward peak priced kWh another day. Or toward an additional Powerwall.
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Re: Lost in the language (Score:5, Insightful)
> The point is that the customer's battery would likely have been depleted trying to hold up the grid until the blackout
If there's a blackout, then nobody is going to be providing power. As a matter of law if the grid goes out you are not allowed to push power into it. The grid needs to be present and operating at 60 +/- 0.050 Hz or these units isolate the house.
The point is these batteries provide coordinated effort to provide peak transient load source and sink; we're talking on the order of minutes. The whole point is to provide a stabilizing buffer and prevent overloads/brownouts in the first place, and given that the loads are transient and bi-directional (absorbing excess power as well as providing additional power) it's extremely unlikely that the powerwall will end up depleted from this activity.
=Smidge=
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Not only that, but you need them at something less than 100% charge if they're to take up excess when a bunch of loads are removed from the system.
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you need them at something less than 100% charge if they're to take up excess when a bunch of loads are removed from the system.
Sure, but only enough less that you have time to take some generation offline. Besides, not fully charging lithium batteries extends their lifespan, you would prefer not to keep them too charged for too long. And ideally you'd always charge them slower than you discharged them...
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If there's a blackout, then nobody is going to be providing power. As a matter of law if the grid goes out you are not allowed to push power into it. The grid needs to be present and operating at 60 +/- 0.050 Hz or these units isolate the house.
In other words, they act as a UPS for your house? I think I want to get one. Just for that reason. Blackouts here are rare, and when they do happen they last for a minute or two tops. Just bridging that would mean computers don't shut down hard, other appliances can keep running and the WLAN doesn't reboot.
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> In other words, they act as a UPS for your house?
That's literally what they're for, yes.
Of course if you only need some equipment to last a few minutes there are probably more affordable options.
=Smidge=
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As every owner of a battery in a virtual power plant will set a discharge limit: there is no fucking way in hell that it will be depleted in a wide area power outage.
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Re: Lost in the language (Score:4, Insightful)
But you are correct, it is not a power plant it is a storage system. ...
Then the hoover dam is not a power plant either, as it only stores water and lets it out when needed
Oh wait, from a power company point of view, both are power plants.
No idea why you mundanes nitpick about stuff, you have no clue about.
twice the transport costs/losses.
Which are virtually zero, in such plants.
No idea why you mundanes nitpick about stuff, you have no clue about.
Strange, I hear an echo ...
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Wow, idiot.
Why not naming/callling it like the power industry does?
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words have meaning.
That is so last century :-)
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words have meaning.
That is so last century :-)
Th Anonymous poster's comment sounded a lot like "Get off my lawn" to me
This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone that just got solar going this year but without a battery, this sounds like a great incentive to push for that storage. Being part of this program could help make the battery purchase more affordable and still be a great thing to have if the grid goes down.
The cost of the home battery storage is still very high compared to the system itself. I've read they have come up with at least one recent break through but that usually takes a few years to commercialize. Cheap, heavy batteries that don't need to go anywhere would be a godsend for homeowners and businesses alike.
It would be nice if the state would further subsidy battery storage for solar homeowners but maybe require the homeowner to keep the battery as public use for so many years after it's paid off, or some such scheme. Part of the appeal of having a battery is you could theoretically disconnect from the grid or at the very least, treat the grid as your backup plan because you otherwise have it covered.
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Being part of this program could help make the battery purchase more affordable and still be a great thing to have if the grid goes down.
And when the grid is just on the verge of going down is when they are going to most appreciate your expedited contribution.
Re:This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
What would be cool is instead of building new nuclear or fossil fuel power generation, power companies would provide subsidies to allow homeowners to purchase more solar than they need and batteries. In exchange the homeowner would share power.
Re:This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:4, Informative)
What would be cool is instead of building new nuclear ...
New nuclear would be cool, actually its probably a necessity. Demand for electricity is going to skyrocket as we electrify more, and at night those batteries need to be charging for daytime use, just like everyone's EVs.
Re:This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Solar is the underdog simply because republicans, until the winter storm, made the industry too unpredictable to navigate. No one knew hoe]w they might punish the solar industry, which became a popular target for republican voters after Solera. But last year a bill was signed creating predictability in the solar marketplace. This is critical as if we could feed excess power during the summer days back from solar panels the risk of rolling black out would be greatly reduced.
This is a solution that could provides results in a year or two, not a decade. Everyone has smartmeters. Everyone.
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Following Texas's example on electrical grid management would be like following Ford's example on the Edsel and Pinto. Hard pass.
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Maybe you should cite these studies.
Re: This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:2)
When the sun starts going down, there is more variation in hot/cold spots and there is a distinct INCREASE in wind during that time.
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There tends to be an abundance of electricity at night due to renewables. In the past I've been PAID to use energy at night because the strike price went negative. Few consumers, lots of wind...
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We really need to stop building power plants for peak power demand.
Maybe. Here's a concern. Today's peak power demand is tomorrow's average power demand.
Maybe I'm wrong. But it seems to me that power consumption will only rise for the near future, especially as EV uptake happens. While adding power storage to the grid is a great thing, it doesn't address that overall creeping increase in demand. If we stop building power plants, we're capping our maximum draw (supply) and just shuffling around time-of-use availability. Which means... scarcity. And (massive) price
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Gas peakers get paid a lot for the electricity they supply, if it were simply mandatory for the electricity providers to offer the same to battery storage users then subsidies likely wouldn't be needed. It'd very likely already make financial sense to put as much solar on the roof as possible if solar users were paid reasonable amounts for the energy from solar they produce and similar amounts to gas peakers at times of high demand.
The question is why wouldn't they do this and the only answer I have is corr
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Correct! I have a very basic 2 x 90 watt flexible panels on our 3rd floor balcony, facing the South East here on the coast. Just during the few hours they receive lovely sunshine, our 800W battery charges up. In fact, we're going to get another battery because we're wasting sunshine for a few hours after the current one reaches capacity. I'm planning on adding 10 more panels on the roof if I can get permission from the powers that be, no pun intended. That will power all our electronics, with only the white goods on grid. If just 10% of people added 1KW of solar to their homes, this would offer relieve to the grid, cleanly. An investment of about £1500-£2000. @lifemachine
In the US no solar company would even acknowledge your existence for £2000. By the time you get a permit and find an engineer to submit the required one line drawing for approval you've already spent way more than £2000 with no panels, no batteries... no nothing.
In other countries you can literally go down to your local hardware store pick up a few panels set them on your roof held in place with cinderblocks and plug them into the wall and save a ton on your power bill. You try tha
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As someone who doesn't own a site-built home, I will not be getting a PV system with or without a battery. I'll be grudgingly paying whatever rates the local utility dictates, lest I want to experience first hand how hot a Florida summer can be without air conditioning.
That's cool too, right? If you can flaunt your being on the upper half of the median income scale, I should totally be able to brag about how great it is to get totally screwed by every rent-seeking weasel under the sun.
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So you want to wait until everyone can afford to participate in power generation before we do anything? I'm sure the climate will wait, it'll be fine.
I would find this sort of environmental virtue signaling hilarious if it were not so destructive. Residential solar is the least productive and most costly of any energy production method.
That same money could be put to way better uses. Geothermal systems, energy efficient appliances, PV farms, CSP, wind, pumped gravity storage, nuclear...etc. Literally anything but rooftop solar.
If you care about climate the last thing you should be cheerleading for is rooftop solar. It pains me to say it because solar
Re: This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:3)
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The thing with rooftop solar is that individuals *can* make a difference on the scale of their own usage with a few thousand dollars.
There is no question individuals can make a difference but not one that makes sense financially or environmentally. In the US a few grand will get you exactly nothing unless you DIY and are not required to pay an engineer for plans. For residential solar you need:
Permitting, plans, wiring, combiner boxes, inverters, racking systems, panels, module level electronics (Mandatory RSD), disconnects and considerable amount of labor. Don't expect 20 years of problem free service /w mandatory MLPE. It's just no
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You have interesting white men first world problems in the US.
Roof springs a leak? Under a solar panel? So you got hit by a meteor strike or what?
Solar panels are not water tight up to the ridge line. They are installed below the ridge line and unless sealed which they are typically not there are gaps between panels in which water runs onto and down the structure via roof not riding on top of panels. Additionally racking systems make penetrations thru the roof that may leak if not sealed properly.
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I assume you know the numbers (i do not), so do the economies of scale in generation really outweigh the transmission losses? How much more expensive (power bills are rising here in Europe for some reason) does electricity need to get before rooftop solar is worthwhile?
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I assume you know the numbers (i do not), so do the economies of scale in generation really outweigh the transmission losses?
Assuming perfect conditions (no trees, shadows, dust) You will lose far more of your "harvest" to suboptimal panel orientation, surface heating and simply keeping the inverter circuits powered up consumes a larger percentage of a smaller array.
In terms of cost for utility PV farm you are operating at ground level in ideal lighting conditions. The panels are on open air mounts that dissipate heat and allow for a bifacial harvest. String voltages are in the 1500v range driving high current inverters without
Re: This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:2)
I get a 5-10% output boost when I go up on my roof every few months to squeegee the panels off.
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Get a battery and sell as few to them as possible.
Re: This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:2)
If it makes you feel better, in California I get paid 5 and pay 40-60 depending on time of day. I export 3x what I import and I don't make a profit. I need to suck it up and get a battery so I pull even less from the grid.
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As someone that just got solar going this year but without a battery, this sounds like a great incentive to push for that storage. Being part of this program could help make the battery purchase more affordable and still be a great thing to have if the grid goes down.
The cost of the home battery storage is still very high compared to the system itself. I've read they have come up with at least one recent break through but that usually takes a few years to commercialize. Cheap, heavy batteries that don't need to go anywhere would be a godsend for homeowners and businesses alike.
It would be nice if the state would further subsidy battery storage for solar homeowners but maybe require the homeowner to keep the battery as public use for so many years after it's paid off, or some such scheme. Part of the appeal of having a battery is you could theoretically disconnect from the grid or at the very least, treat the grid as your backup plan because you otherwise have it covered.
Rooftop solar is by far the most expensive form of energy production.
Residential battery storage is by far the most expensive form of energy storage.
Re:This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:5, Informative)
> Rooftop solar is by far the most expensive form of energy production.
The LCOE for *residential* rooftop solar is high, but it is not "by far the most expensive." The cheapest residential rooftop solar is cheaper than the cheapest natural gas peaking plant and roughly equal to nuclear power, for example. Commercial rooftop solar is much more cost effective, with the cheapest LCOE being less than half that of the cheapest nuclear.
https://www.lazard.com/perspec... [lazard.com]
Not finding any decent data for residential battery storage vs utility level storage...
=Smidge=
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The LCOE for *residential* rooftop solar is high, but it is not "by far the most expensive."
See pg. 46 of the IEA report.
https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org]
The cheapest residential rooftop solar is cheaper than the cheapest natural gas peaking plant and roughly equal to nuclear power
Why are you citing the musings of an asset management company? Residential solar is nowhere near roughly equal to nuclear power.
, for example. Commercial rooftop solar is much more cost effective, with the cheapest LCOE being less than half that of the cheapest nuclear.
Not according to the IEA.
Not finding any decent data for residential battery storage vs utility level storage...
There is something under the heading "Unsubsidized levelized cost of storage comparison" in the link you provided.
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I'm seeing some problems with the EIA report. See page 35;
" For nuclear, coal and CCGTs a standard capacity factor of 85% was chosen. This is higher than the average observed capacity factors in practice".
On page 46;
"The aggregated data for the 24 countries that provided data for this report does not tell the whole story of levelised generation costs", and very likely does not reflect costs specific to the USA.
The 2020 report is badly outdated, it was written at a time when interest rates were exceptionally
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CF's are pretty irrelevant in praxis.
Only idiots on the internet use them as an argument, for whatever.
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> Why are you citing the musings of an asset management company?
Because the data is newer, and they use actual market data rather than modeling methods based on self-reported governmental data. If we're talking real world costs then it's best to use real world cost data, don't ya think?
IEA also has a history of doing some weird assumptions, like pricing PV as if it's installed using single-axis tracking... which nobody does on residential systems, and is rare on commercial installs, because it blows the
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Because the data is newer, and they use actual market data rather than modeling methods based on self-reported governmental data. If we're talking real world costs then it's best to use real world cost data, don't ya think?
I trust IEA's data more than I trust "LAZARD". You are free to make your own value judgments.
The claim rooftop solar is equal to cost to nuclear in cost is absurd. Not just in terms of LCOE but also in terms of metrics that actually matter in the real world (e.g. VALCOE).
In the US the capacity factor of nuclear is > 90%. Rooftop solar is < 20%.
Even if you stipulate the absurd is correct and there is cost parity between nuclear and rooftop solar the value of that energy is nowhere close to parity.
Q
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natural gas peaking plant and roughly equal to nuclear power
Is this one of those Nuclear plants that doesn't include cleanup and decommissioning costs? There's nothing even remotely equal about a gas peaker and a nuclear plant over LCOE. The latter is way more expensive which is why people are not building them and opting for the former.
No energy company has ever decommissioned an EOL nuclear plant without going bankrupt.
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Rooftop solar is by far the most expensive form of energy production.
In Germany it is the cheapest. No idea about yur country, though.
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In Germany it is the cheapest. No idea about yur country, though.
Not even close. Rooftop solar is at least four times the cost of a PV farm per kWh.
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It would be nice if the state would further subsidy battery storage for solar homeowners but maybe require the homeowner to keep the battery as public use for so many years after it's paid off, or some such scheme.
Literally all that's needed is mandatory net metering. No other change need be made than that the power company must pay you market rates. PGE's poor maintenance performance literally killing people by the score should tell us all about the results of permitting private industry to own infrastructure. Ownership, operation, and maintenance of the grid must be decoupled from generation.
With net metering you automatically get paid for the power company profiting from your ownership of batteries, and no other a
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In praxis net metering does not work.
The power company has to pay for: power production, power distribution - aka grid - , metering, billing etc.
The owner of a solar panel has only to pay for production.
Obviously the price for receiving power is higher than redistributing into the grid.
However a ratio of 3/2 would probably be fair.
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Solving it with a ratio is conceivably a viable solution, but tends to become more inherently unfair as the amount of transfer increases, because the values are generally biased in favor of the centralized authority. Another solution is to have an [optional?] alternate means of accounting in which users are assessed separate fees for generation and for infrastructure. Ownership of the transmission infrastructure should in any case be decoupled from that of the generation equipment, regardless of how any of
Re: This sounds pretty cool!!! (Score:2)
In southern California my bill is split into generation and distribution charges. Each one is probably more than you pay for both though.
Without comp? (Score:2)
> would join in voluntarily without compensation
So the expensive batteries that have a limited number of charge cycles that they are paying money for are getting their durability hit by others, for free?
Sure is nice of them, to not pay people.
Demand side (Score:3)
The google algorithm has started pointing me to 'smart' electrical panels. And while they are ridiculously, unnecessarily expensive right now, there is something to be said about having technology that can quickly reduce demand when needed. For instance if there is peak demand, I would be ok for my smart panel to disable the breaker to my washer/dryer, or some other dedicated circuit(s). As it stands, the utility either issues blanket requests via TV and newspaper (I don't watch or read) or then it's just a rolling blackout or something. But reducing demand by say 10-15% when needed goes a long way to reducing overbuilding peakers, or these pricey battery solutions. I wouldn't do this for free, but would for some reduced tier. And the utilities might work with folks looking to have electric car chargers to add a discounted panel as part of an upgrade deal.
And yeah on the supply side, count me in to build some more nuke plants, open Yucca Mountain, and pile on the solar + wind. Just for the sake of electrical energy price stability and to let those petro-dictatorships go to heck. Ridiculous that in 2022, fifty years after Energy Crisis I, our collective chains are still be yanked by the likes of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and so on. Why would anyone of any political stripe want to live under that yoke?
https://www.span.io/panel [www.span.io]
https://www.luminsmart.com/pla... [luminsmart.com]
https://www.leviton.com/en/pro... [leviton.com]
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The google algorithm has started pointing me to 'smart' electrical panels. And while they are ridiculously, unnecessarily expensive right now, there is something to be said about having technology that can quickly reduce demand when needed. For instance if there is peak demand, I would be ok for my smart panel to disable the breaker to my washer/dryer, or some other dedicated circuit(s).
I suspect most people would consider that behaviour a critical bug.
The only way I see smart homes/panels working to help with grid issues is some combination of onsite storage and providing people visibility about the current power situation and what a particular device is costing them to power.
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I don't want my panel to have the intelligence in it, except for current monitoring (and even that would arguably better be done per-outlet anyway, or at least per-receptacle, total mains draw aside.) The only thing that I would consider letting the power company control is my HVAC, and it can have the intelligence for that in the thermostat where it's easy to replace, maintain, upgrade, bypass, etc. I especially do not want the power being removed from my laundry, because the laundry machines have electron
Sounds like a great idea! (Score:2)
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Putting solar panels on residential roofs is good for the grid, because point of use production decreases grid utilization. However, the only benefit of putting the batteries in the homes is islanding, which is to say, it's a benefit to the homeowner when the grid goes down. In every other way, it's a bigger benefit to have the batteries centralized, where they can be maintained and managed centrally, and can be used to provide grid stability during a restart.
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The failures of Centralized Management seem to be more frequent these days.
The failures of California's power system are due to deregulation. It's the failure to centrally manage at fault, not the concept of centralized management.
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two dollars (Score:2)
$2/kWh seems unsustainable, even in California.
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If lots of folks have solar (and maybe storage) then who is paying that price? Poor people and power hungry businesses. But at $2/KWh they'll figure out something better quickly, I mean you pay for a generator fairly quickly at that rate.
We have lots and lots of sun in California. All new houses have to have solar. Everyone is being pushed to install solar. Given the rapidly rising cost of power and the dropping cost of solar the payoff is quicker than ever.
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When there is a temporary power shortage the wholesale price of power goes way up. They can't sell power at anywhere near that rate most of the time, but when demand peaks when there is little spare capacity $2 / kwh is realistic.
Electrical distribution utilities have to charge more most of the time so they can afford to pay exorbitant marginal rates at times when there is a grid wide shortage. In unusual conditions they have gone bankrupt. They avoid the full impact of such shortages by b
Smart grids! (Score:2)
All energy-heavy devices should HAVE TO support this.
And that's what I don't understand about
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Peaker plants aren't for when the entirety of California's generating capacity shuts down at once. And neither is this. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
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Re:According TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
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Go google how many peakers are there in CA.
I'm just saying don't have very much in terms of expectations.
Physics isn't wishcraft... No matter how much people want it to me.
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So 600,000 garages with power walls would equal the short-term output of all the peakers. As best I can tell, there are ~7.5 million single family homes in California so 8% of them would need a power wall. Is that going to happen immediately? No, but it's not impossible either. Is this the best solution? Probably not, but it seems like it could help. Getting a bunch of well-heeled early adopters to foot the initial bill and giving them a l
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You forgot the power ratings... "California currently has 7.1 gigawatts of gas turbine or internal combustion peaker plants" 87+ MWh per peaker, over four times 1500 power walls (from the link you so kindly put up... same one I used). My math shows 525,000 power walls, but I do horseback guestimates and round a lot. so at $10,000 per household (just batteries) $5,250,000,000 $5.25 BILLION? Before the renewable installations that really need to go with the batteries are accounted for.
We've NOT accounted
Re: According TFA (Score:3)
$5.25B is less than cost of Californiaâ(TM)s existing peaker power plants, so that seems like a pretty good deal to me.
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They need seawater desalination.
Tell me you're not right in the head without telling me you're not right in the head. They absolutely don't "need" seawater desalination; they're not Saudi Arabia.
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Re: According TFA (Score:4, Informative)
New TOU tiers, power walls less attractive (Score:2)
To be fair the local brownouts are almost always so short my UPS doesn't get to the point where they start telling devices to power down. So the real advantage would be lower nighttime rates. However the power company basically got rid of nighttime tiers. There is a single high usage tier and everything else. High use in only five ours in the afternoon/evening. The other daytime hours and nighttime are the same, so power walls are
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I am curious about the compensation. Seeing as how you are in the program, can you explain how it works?
The article says battery owners "receive $2 per kWh that they send back to the grid during emergency events". But presumably they may have paid much more than that for the electricity they bought to charge the battery. Is this taken into account somehow? I realize that many people will have solar panels that could have done the charging, but that costs money too in terms of capital expense.
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But presumably they may have paid much more than that for the electricity they bought to charge the battery.
No? Why would they? They usually charge from their solar panels
Is this taken into account somehow?
No need, as they usually would be paid to charge from the grid.
(* facepalm *)
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As I clearly said; "I realize that many people will have solar panels that could have done the charging, but that costs money too in terms of capital expense". And obviously there will be people with batteries but no solar panels.
"they usually would be paid to charge from the grid", who told you that?
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But presumably they may have paid much more than that for the electricity they bought to charge the battery They paid much more than $2/kWh for electricity? Why, is it being generated in an antimatter reactor? Or where else would you get such ridiculously expensive electricity?
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You're being disingenuous. Peakers come in a great variety and for different purposes. This isn't about providing peakload, it's about providing frequency correction while peakers fire up. Your spitting analogy only shows you have no idea how this works.
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> A (bigger end) Telsa battery has about 100 KWh, the grid needs 4.1 quadrillion KWh a year. Claiming cars will do any substantial amount of letting solar and wind or other intermittent sources be base load is folly.
The second sentence does not seem to have any relationship to the first.
To start with, in 2021 the US used 4.1 trillion kWh [eia.gov] not 4.1 quardillion, so you're already wrong by a factor of 1000.
Then you cite a number for an entire year... okay? It seems like you're trying to imply we'd need 41 bil
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So I guess really you're not saying anything, just spouting big numbers unrelated to any point you might be trying to make...
Huh? Did Trump join slashdot?
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Well nobody's perfect. Except that one guy who lived about 2,000 years ago...who happened to be a progressive [noevalleyministry.org]!
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On the contrary, he was very accepting of transgenders [biblegateway.com]!
Keeping "woman", "mother", is not transphobic (Score:2)
On the contrary, he was very accepting of transgenders [biblegateway.com]!
You falsely conflate the acceptance of transgender individuals with the acceptance of radical progressive redefinition of a common terms. Treating a transgender person with courtesy and dignity and recognizing their civil rights is one thing, to abandon the common use of "woman", "mother", etc is something completely different. Jesus did not do that latter. Rejection of the latter is not rejection of the former as radical progressives falsely claim. A transgender woman who underwent surgical reassignment ma
Re: Keeping "woman", "mother", is not transphobic (Score:2)
I have a male presenting friend who just gave birth. Should I pretend he doesn't exist to protect your feelings? He has feelings too, and I'm inclined to care more about the feelings of the less hateful person over the person who coopted a discussion on power generation to bitch about how offended they are by what's in someone they don't know's pants.
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Historically, the reason somebody would become a eunuch was because they wanted to (or somebody else chose for them to) be free of all sexual desire so that they could spend more time focusing on other things, or they viewed sexual desires as sinful so they sought to remove them.
So unless you think that is what trannies want, (which I really doubt) then this doesn't apply to them at all.
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Today's progressives say we can fix all of the worlds problems if we eliminate free speech, guns, and capitalism.
And straight white masculine men, they seem to be on the list too. Although some progressives will tolerate the former with ongoing public displays of loyalty, well maybe if the masculinity is toned down. :-)
Re: Tesla? Forget it (Score:2)
As a straight white male, I have 0 issues interacting with LGBTQ+ people. When you say that everyone in a community you constantly complain about doesn't like you, maybe the problem isn't everyone else.
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I don't think his comment is anything relevant to LGBT, unless you're saying they're all emasculated, which if you knew anything about them at all you'd know just how far from the truth that is, especially within certain segments of the L side. Rather, there's this attitude among progressives that if a while male is hyper-masculine, then this is a real societal problem that must be toned down. But even though, say for example, mainstream black culture is hyper-masculine on a much bigger scale, that doesn't