Last week, Tesla Motors announced an ambitious new product line: batteries that power homes or businesses.
The idea is that homes and businesses powered by solar panels can harvest and store energy during the day, which can be used to run homes at night, or to use as a backup during power outages.
"Our goal is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy," Elon Musk, the company's founder, said at a press conference on April 30 . ".
[Creating genius: the greatest mind in the world] While the exact technology involved in the battery, called Powerwall, is a closely guarded secret, it may not be based on revolutionary concepts, jordi Cabana, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago who studies new battery materials, said.
"Look at the specs they advertise and it doesn't look so different --
In terms of cost-
What did they put in the car, "Cabana told Live Science.
Basic Technology Tesla's new system includes a $3,500 Powerwall.
Battery pack with storage of 10 KW-hours of power.
Stephen Harris said it would take about £ 1 KW for the hairdryer to run and the stove would take several kilowatts to run, so the new system could power the home for a few hours, a chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, research on lithium battery technology.
The company also plans to launch a business --based battery-
The storage system is called the Powerpack, although the price of the system has not yet been announced.
Tesla's representative said at a news conference that Tesla is already accepting orders for residential systems, but the products will not be shipped until the end of the summer. The boxes —
About 33 inch of them (0.
8 m) wide, 51 inch (1.
4 m) 7 inch (17) high.
8 centimeters deep
Designed to be easy to install and will be connected to the Internet so that users can monitor their power usage.
Experts say the technology may be the same or similar to the technology in the Tesla Model S car.
Although companies keep their technology secret, most scientists believe that Model S uses a special type of lithium-
Ion batteries, one of which is called a cathode, are made from a mixture of nickel, manganese and cobalt oxide (NMC.
The lithium ion is scattered throughout the layer, and when the battery is charged, the current drives the lithium ion from the cathode to a fluid filled with conductive ions, known as the other layer of the anode, consisting of a graphite stack.
When electricity stored in NMC batteries is used, it causes lithium ion to drift back to the cathode, Paul Shearing, a chemistry engineer at University College London, previously told Live Science.
Different battery manufacturers may repair a geometric shape or a specific ingredient mixture, but most researchers believe that the foundation of the Tesla Model battery pack is this basic chemical composition, Cabana said. Game changer?
According to product specifications, Powerwall can store less power than a typical Tesla Model S battery.
In addition, the car is driven by direct current while the house uses alternating current, which means that the new battery pack may include some kind of Converter, Cabana said.
But while this new technology may not be completely different from other battery packs, they may change the market for home power storage.
The idea of storing power from solar panels is not new, but most people usually have cheaper, smaller power
Capacity batteries do not mean continuous power supply to the entire home, Cabana said.
Some companies are trying to develop industry-Battery size-
Basically the whole building is a huge battery, he said.
Harris said that on the other hand, most people who use solar panels to power their homes only sell excess power to the grid in the day.
In the case of power failure, nature
While the gas itself requires additional costs, the gas backup generator is usually much cheaper.
So, from a purely economic point of view,
The battery-based battery doesn't make sense, Harris said.
On the other hand, Tesla has performed well in design, marketing and packaging.
Similar to companies like BMW, Harris said, Tesla has opened up a small space in the automotive sector as a prestigious futuristic luxury car.
But while the car has always been a symbol of status, "I don't know how many Middle Ages there are-
"The crisis man will try to impress the ladies by buying Tesla batteries," Harris said . ".
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Originally published on Live Science.
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