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There are two reasons for home batteries that I can think of. One is battery backup for power outages. How much market is there for that? It can't be large en
by mchahn 11y ago
There are two reasons for home batteries that I can think of. One is battery backup for power outages. How much market is there for that? It can't be large enough to justify Musk's humongous investment.
So that leaves the purpose of buffering solar energy collection. This dovetails with his cousin's Solar City outfit, which is growing like crazy.
I have a Solar City installation. I have no need for a battery because California makes my power company take excess juice I produce and give it back to me when I need it. The power company is effectively a big battery.
So batteries are only needed in states that don't make power companies do this. There has been a trend of states, like Nevada itself, taking back these laws. This is because it is considered a tax on homeowners who don't have solar.
Is Musk betting on the long-term demise of these laws?
- abalone 11y agoI'd agree that utilities ought to handle most of the energy storage problem, if only to realize economies of scale. But, two points: 1. Battery backup for homes could actually be a huge market. If you're looking at two homes, one is $500,000 and the other is $503,500 and outage-proof, which one would you buy? It's a nice feature at a relatively small price. 2. At the launch event Musk stressed the benefits of grid independence for the 3rd world. He drew an analogy with cell phones, where cell phone proliferation basically leapfrogged and obsoleted landline deployment. So in places where there is poor or no electrical grid they might jump straight to solar and batteries. (I don't know if he actually expects the 3rd world to be a significant customer base, but that's what he said.)