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There are already widespread programs where utilities pay customers a rebate in exchange for remotely turning off their A/C compressors at the peak of a heat wa

There are already widespread programs where utilities pay customers a rebate in exchange for remotely turning off their A/C compressors at the peak of a heat wave in order to chop the top off consumption spikes. Paying high-consumption commercial customers to turn off entirely for a few hours to avoid spinning up another generation plant happens too. It's not too far-fetched to imagine a rebate program on home battery systems if the utility got the same remote control power to disconnect homes from the grid when needed, or even have their batteries dump power back onto it at those times. Essentially, individual homes become part of "smart grid" management systems.

xxxyy 12y ago
Doing arbitrage on the power network by storing energy during off-period, and releasing it during high-period is a relatively old concept (eg. [0]). What I don't see happening is the price of this battery going low enough to make this kind of arbitrage profitable in a reasonable amount of time. The article does not mention the cost aspect of such an investment. Germany along with a few other EU countries are currently high on renewable energy. As far as I know the most profitable way to utilize electric solar panels is to sell excessive energy back to the grid, not store it in batteries. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Losing power from snowstorms (well ice storms really) is quite common in New England and many family members have dropped $5k on propane generators. If you can bring this battery down to that price you will catch all those customers as well as have distributed off peak storage capacity. Right now the best way to store power is to pump water uphill, seriously.
  - JshWright 12y ago
    'Pumping water uphill' will likely always be a very good way to store power at those scales. I would take a pretty spectacular number of batteries to match the stored energy potential of a small lake with a couple hundred feet of head.
    - discardorama 12y ago
      > 'Pumping water uphill' will likely always be a very good way to store power at those scales. ... but not when it's ice.
      - spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
        And does require the right geography
- JshWright 12y ago
  The problem is, selling it back to the grid only works when it's a fairly small fraction of the customer base that's doing it. We can't _all_ sell power back to the grid. EDIT: Why the downvotes? This is a real issue... The current model of 'buy solar panels and pay for them by selling power back to the grid' will not scale forever...
  - codingdave 12y ago
    That really isn't the current model. The current model is to buy solar panels today, thereby locking in your long-term electrical cost at the price of today's solar panels, with the expectation that conventional electricity will continue to rise, with a point 7-10 years in the future where you have "paid off" the panels, followed by 15 years of free/cheap power, avoiding the future high costs of electricity from a utility company, finally ending 25-30 years from now when you need a new system, but hopefully renewable technology will have greatly improved by then.
  - hnal943 12y ago
    If the utility is paying a market rate (instead of an inflated rate to get people to invest in alternative energy), why couldn't we all sell power to the grid? Eventually if the home units get efficient enough, what would be the problem with power being supplied entirely peer-to-peer? Granted, I think we're a very long way away from that, but I don't see anything wrong with the funding mechanism.
    - rhino369 12y ago
      The market rate would just fall to near zero. The surplus from different homes would have very similar patterns. When it is sunny and bright out, everyone has surplus. At night, nobody does. You are buying when everyone is buying and you are selling when everyone is selling. That isn't even considering reliability. With wildly variable production, we will have to pay out of the ass for peaker plants to pick up the slack.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
- brazzledazzle 12y ago
  I think it's worth giving Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt. It seems pretty likely that he'd consider these problems before moving forward with a product.
- eigenvector 12y ago
  Not only will the batteries need to get cheaper, but the available arbitrage opportunity will need to account for the necessary upgrades to utility distribution systems to accommodate large amounts of distributed energy storage (DES). DES, particularly at high penetrations, generally violates the design assumptions of distribution protection systems and requires non-trivial upgrades to protective relaying and SCADA systems to maintain adequate real-time control.
- codingdave 12y ago
  You are thinking from a large scale, profit-driven perspective. The early adopters for this, at least in residences, will be people living off-grid, focused on self-sufficiency, and who are willing to take a financial hit to achieve that goal.
joezydeco 12y ago
Beyond that, you can opt into paying a real-time price for electricity (like the utility does) instead of a flat rate. You're at the mercy of the market but can save a significant amount if you voluntarily turn off high consumption devices during peak periods and schedule other loads for overnight or slack periods. What really gets interesting are the times (especially during early summer mornings) where there's too much supply on the grid and the price drops into negative territory (i.e. they'll pay you to shed load off the network). That's when you need the storage system charging up as fast as it can. I've been working on a personal system that watches the price and other factors (weather forecasts, family schedule) and cycles the A/C as deep as possible during those times. What might really suck though is if everyone has one of these in their homes, then the price advantage will go away. Not a bad problem to have, but it means we'll have to shift our supply to other places like personal solar panels (hmm, does Musk sell those?)
- mrfusion 12y ago
  Could you mine bitcoins during those negative times?
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    How much money do you want to sink into your power generation / storage / usage rig? You can increase the efficiency at which you do these things, sure, but that doesn't mean it will be economical.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Theoretically? Sure. Practically, when compared to underground Chinese mines full of equipment? No. The negative price situation only happens maybe 0.5% of the year. Your expensive equipment will sit idle the rest of the time.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    I want an electric shower that mines bitcoins. Also, I suspect there's a market for them with stock traders if I include enough chrome and blue LEDs.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
NickNameNick 12y ago
Paper mills and other wood processing make for great instantaneous interruptible load. In NZ one of the major electricity generating companies pays some major industrial customers for the ability to cut them off, enabling them to reallocate the power almost as if it were additional generation. Aluminium smelters are good too, but you can't cut them off without warning, because it will break the arc-furnaces when the aluminium solidifies around the carbon electrodes.

xxxyy 12y ago

Doing arbitrage on the power network by storing energy during off-period, and releasing it during high-period is a relatively old concept (eg. [0]). What I don't see happening is the price of this battery going low enough to make this kind of arbitrage profitable in a reasonable amount of time. The article does not mention the cost aspect of such an investment. Germany along with a few other EU countries are currently high on renewable energy. As far as I know the most profitable way to utilize electric solar panels is to sell excessive energy back to the grid, not store it in batteries. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

happyscrappy 12y ago
Losing power from snowstorms (well ice storms really) is quite common in New England and many family members have dropped $5k on propane generators. If you can bring this battery down to that price you will catch all those customers as well as have distributed off peak storage capacity. Right now the best way to store power is to pump water uphill, seriously.
- JshWright 12y ago
  'Pumping water uphill' will likely always be a very good way to store power at those scales. I would take a pretty spectacular number of batteries to match the stored energy potential of a small lake with a couple hundred feet of head.
  - discardorama 12y ago
    > 'Pumping water uphill' will likely always be a very good way to store power at those scales. ... but not when it's ice.
    - spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
      And does require the right geography
JshWright 12y ago
The problem is, selling it back to the grid only works when it's a fairly small fraction of the customer base that's doing it. We can't _all_ sell power back to the grid. EDIT: Why the downvotes? This is a real issue... The current model of 'buy solar panels and pay for them by selling power back to the grid' will not scale forever...
- codingdave 12y ago
  That really isn't the current model. The current model is to buy solar panels today, thereby locking in your long-term electrical cost at the price of today's solar panels, with the expectation that conventional electricity will continue to rise, with a point 7-10 years in the future where you have "paid off" the panels, followed by 15 years of free/cheap power, avoiding the future high costs of electricity from a utility company, finally ending 25-30 years from now when you need a new system, but hopefully renewable technology will have greatly improved by then.
- hnal943 12y ago
  If the utility is paying a market rate (instead of an inflated rate to get people to invest in alternative energy), why couldn't we all sell power to the grid? Eventually if the home units get efficient enough, what would be the problem with power being supplied entirely peer-to-peer? Granted, I think we're a very long way away from that, but I don't see anything wrong with the funding mechanism.
  - rhino369 12y ago
    The market rate would just fall to near zero. The surplus from different homes would have very similar patterns. When it is sunny and bright out, everyone has surplus. At night, nobody does. You are buying when everyone is buying and you are selling when everyone is selling. That isn't even considering reliability. With wildly variable production, we will have to pay out of the ass for peaker plants to pick up the slack.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
brazzledazzle 12y ago
I think it's worth giving Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt. It seems pretty likely that he'd consider these problems before moving forward with a product.
eigenvector 12y ago
Not only will the batteries need to get cheaper, but the available arbitrage opportunity will need to account for the necessary upgrades to utility distribution systems to accommodate large amounts of distributed energy storage (DES). DES, particularly at high penetrations, generally violates the design assumptions of distribution protection systems and requires non-trivial upgrades to protective relaying and SCADA systems to maintain adequate real-time control.
codingdave 12y ago
You are thinking from a large scale, profit-driven perspective. The early adopters for this, at least in residences, will be people living off-grid, focused on self-sufficiency, and who are willing to take a financial hit to achieve that goal.

joezydeco 12y ago

Beyond that, you can opt into paying a real-time price for electricity (like the utility does) instead of a flat rate. You're at the mercy of the market but can save a significant amount if you voluntarily turn off high consumption devices during peak periods and schedule other loads for overnight or slack periods. What really gets interesting are the times (especially during early summer mornings) where there's too much supply on the grid and the price drops into negative territory (i.e. they'll pay you to shed load off the network). That's when you need the storage system charging up as fast as it can. I've been working on a personal system that watches the price and other factors (weather forecasts, family schedule) and cycles the A/C as deep as possible during those times. What might really suck though is if everyone has one of these in their homes, then the price advantage will go away. Not a bad problem to have, but it means we'll have to shift our supply to other places like personal solar panels (hmm, does Musk sell those?)

mrfusion 12y ago
Could you mine bitcoins during those negative times?
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  How much money do you want to sink into your power generation / storage / usage rig? You can increase the efficiency at which you do these things, sure, but that doesn't mean it will be economical.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  Theoretically? Sure. Practically, when compared to underground Chinese mines full of equipment? No. The negative price situation only happens maybe 0.5% of the year. Your expensive equipment will sit idle the rest of the time.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I want an electric shower that mines bitcoins. Also, I suspect there's a market for them with stock traders if I include enough chrome and blue LEDs.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

NickNameNick 12y ago

Paper mills and other wood processing make for great instantaneous interruptible load. In NZ one of the major electricity generating companies pays some major industrial customers for the ability to cut them off, enabling them to reallocate the power almost as if it were additional generation. Aluminium smelters are good too, but you can't cut them off without warning, because it will break the arc-furnaces when the aluminium solidifies around the carbon electrodes.