Hal Hodson's dream of the Sun
Power society has attracted US for decades.
But the cost of delivering solar energy to the grid is still very high.
Now, thanks to the acquisition of the company, Solar energy can get the required efficiency improvements.
Last week, Tesla built enough batteries to power your home, and it just happened to make the biggest battery.
Sell electric vehicles-announce the purchase of SolarCity, one of the main installers of solar panels in the United States.
With the support of Tesla CEO Elon Musk
The establishment of the two companies will provide the breakthrough needed for the newly started solar industry.
The price of solar panels has fallen sharply over the past decade, but providing stable power from solar is more complicated than just inserting more panels.
Power grid operators need a way to store the energy of the sun in order to smooth supply at night and cloudy.
Several experimental sites are exploring how best to do this for renewable sources such as solar and wind energy.
The Solana solar power plant in gilabend, Arizona pumps excess heat into a large bucket of salt that is good at absorbing heat.
When energy is needed, boil the water through a salt pipe and produce steam that drives the turbine.
In Texas, a large number of batteries support the Notrees wind farm to keep energy flowing when the wind disappears.
"Batteries that can store solar energy before they need it will smooth the grid supply" both projects will turn unreliable renewable resources into reliable power plants-but at a cost.
"While the deployment of storage is increasing, it is not universal," said Matt Cromer, head of the day dial program at the Center for Sustainable Energy Systems in forunhove, Boston.
Aminul Huque of Palo Alto electric power Institute in California says it's not enough to just plug solar panels into the battery.
The battery is under pressure during each charging cycle, and if managed accidentally, the battery will die soon.
To solve this problem, the company is turning to software.
Kromer said that daily dial used data on electricity demand, weather forecasts and electricity prices, as well as data on solar panels and the storage system itself.
The software uses all this information to better decide when to charge and discharge the battery, thus extending the life of the battery.
It can also help energy suppliers balance supply and demand and eliminate peaks.
Tesla and SolarCity can do the same.
Batteries in cars and homes can store solar energy when needed, and Tesla can provide solar energy for the grid.
Similar approaches have been tested in pilot programs across the United States.
Arizona Public Service-a utility that serves the Phoenix area and plugs into the Solana plant-is deploying solar panels and batteries to 1500 households.
Although panels and storage space are distributed on many roofs, they are actually tied together to form a 10-
Megawatt power plants that APS can control.
The Japanese dial project is scheduled to be piloted in Massachusetts, where local utilities control 2 MW of solar power generation and storage.
This integration is at the heart of this relationship.
The promise between Tesla and SolarCity is much larger.
There may soon be a power plant on each roof.