Why Tesla’s announcement is such a big deal: The coming revolution in energy storage - home battery system

The story has been updated.
Late Thursday, Tesla Motors, a dazzling electric vehicle company run by billionaire Elon Musk, is no longer a justa car company.
As expected, Tesla has announced that it will offer a home battery product that people can use to store the energy of solar panels or support power outages at home. It is also possible to perform larger versions of similar roles for companies and even some grids.
For homeowners, the power capacity of Tesla Powerwall is 10 KW hours or 7 KW hours at a cost of $3,500 or $3,000.
These are the cost of the supplier, excluding the cost of installation and power inverter, so the customer can pay a lot more than that, the company said.
Tesla said that the battery "increases the capacity of household solar energy consumption, while also providing backup functions when the power grid is interrupted.
Meanwhile, the company says it will produce larger batteries for businesses and utilities
Listing with Texas-
Headquartered in Oncor and Edison, Southern California. [
It will be cheaper to power your home with batteries]
The expectations that led to this announcement were very strong --
Words like the spirit of the times are being used --
This in itself is one of the reasons why the moment of "energy storage" may eventually come, because energy wonksput it describes batteries and other energy-saving technologies for later use.
The price of batteries has begun to drop, but if Tesla adds a "cool factor" to the equation, people may even be willing to expand their financest to buy batteries.
However, the fact is that Tesla is not the only company in battery games, and the market is expected to grow no matter what happens to Tesla.
Earlier this year, a study by GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association found that although energy storage is still relatively niche --
Market size was only $0. 128 billion in 2014
It also grew 40% last year, three times the number of installations expected this year. [
Why is your next home probably powered by battery?
GTM Research predicts that the market will reach $1 by 2019. 5 billion.
"The trend is that more and more players are interested in the storage market," said ravi Manghani of Sgtm research . ".
Tesla has two unique advantages, he said.
It's making a huge battery.
Manufacture "Gigabit factory" that should press down price and cooperate with solar energy installer Sun City (
Musk is chairman of Sun City)
This "gives Tesla access to more customers, including residential and commercial customers, who want to deploy storage with or without solar energy.
"In the long run, the main result of more cheaper batteries and wider energy storage may be a real energy revolution --
And a greener planet.
Here are several ways storage can change significantlyand green —
The way we get power: 1.
Help integrate more renewable energy into the grid.
Almost all those who follow the Tesla story focus on home batteries-but in fact, the biggest impact of storage can happen at the level of the entire grid.
In fact, GTM Research's survey of the storage market found that 90% of deployments are currently utility-scale, not in homes and businesses.
This may just be: Wing 2014 studyby special zone Brattle Group, ready for Wan
Texas Utilities have found that energy storage "seems to be on the verge of becoming fairly economically attractive," and because of the improved reliability of the energy grid, the benefits of deploying energy storage in Texas will "go far beyond the cost ".
Oncor costs up to $5.
The state invested 2 billion in storage.
California has also instructed state utilities to start developing storage capacity-especially for environmental reasons.
For more power storage, it's not just a commitment to a more reliable grid --
This means that people can rely less on fossil fuels and more on renewable energy sources such as wind energy, especially solar energy, which vary depending on the time of day or the weather.
Or the asa 2013 Energy Department reported that "storage can actually" smooth "the power delivery generated by wind and solar technologies, increasing the value of renewable energy.
"Storage changed the rules of the game," Tom Kimbis, vice president of executive affairs at the solar industry association, said in a statement . ".
There are many reasons for this, according to Kimbis, but one of the reasons is "grid-
Bundled storage helps system operators manage peak mobile loads, renewable energy integration, and grid operations. ”(
To be fair, the problems in the wind energy industry show that in order to add more wind energy to the grid, a lot of storage space will be needed. )
Consider how this might work, take California as an example, where California is currently adding natural gas plants when demand for electricity increases during peak hours, explains sgsgavin Purchas, head of the clean energy project in California, the Environmental Protection Fund.
In California, "Renewable energy generates a lot of energy during the day and then drops at night, which leaves you a huge gap that you need to fill," ordered.
"If you have a lot of storage on the road, then you can basically charge these storage devices during the day, and then schedule them at night, when the sun goes down
Basically, it allows you to postpone when using solar energy.
Purchas notes that this will be attractive to power companies because "the gas reacts very quickly, but not as fast as the battery, which can be done in seconds, not minutes of gasoline.
"So the consequence of adding a lot of storage to the grid is not only that greenhouse gas emissions are much less, but also that performance is better. 2.
Green houses in the suburbs, and perhaps their electric cars.
Moving from the grid to home, batteries or other forms of storage have the same huge potential, especially when paired with rooftop solar panels.
At present, rooftop solar users can get electricity during the day and return some of them to the power grid according to the net metering arrangement, thus reducing the bill.
This has led to a boom in individual solar installations, but the problem here is the same as the whole grid: Solar energy is getting thinner as the sun goes, but you still need a lot of power throughout the night and night.
However, storing excess solar energy with batteries and turning them on as soon as the solar panels stop absorbing the sun makes a big difference.
With more investment in green energy, households may be able to move further away from dependence on the grid.
Also, they use it when the environmental impact is greater.
"If you think of solar energy, when it comes to producing in a day, the environmental footprint is relatively mild," explains Irene Mansour, a business school professor at Dartmouth College . ".
Mansur explained that this is because at this time of the day, solar energy is more likely to replace electricity generated by gas with lower carbon intensity.
"But if you can transfer some of these to the evening . . . . . . If you can save some in the middle of the night, it's more likely to replace coal . ".
Maybe one day, some sun
Sources and power can even be widely used for electric vehicle charging like Teslas
This will solve another problem.
According to a discussion of a lot of 2012 papers by Mansur and two colleagues, although electric vehicles do not have tail tube emissions, their energy footprint may be surprisingly high, because they often charge at night to provide power to the grid (
It is said to be "on the edge ")
It usually comes from coal.
But if electric vehicles can use the power stored by the sun to charge overnight, the problem will also disappear.
All of this contributes to the larger vision recently outlined by the research team at the University of California, Los Angeles Institute of Environmental and Sustainability, in which suburban homeowners, who can install roof solar and batteries, and driving electric cars, starting to significantly reduce the carbon footprint.
For a long time, the suburbs tend to be larger because of the long commute
And their household energy bill. [
How solar and electric cars can make suburban life awesome again]
Of course, this is still a vision, not a reality, for the vast majority of suburban residents
But energy storage is a key part of this vision. 3.
There is another factor that needs to be added to help adjust the price of Smart Energy, which shows how energy storage can further help homeowners save money.
Economists have long said that we need "smart" or "dynamic" electricity prices.
People should charge more for electricity when energy demand is strong, such as in the afternoon and evening, because the actual cost of electricity in the wholesale market is higher.
This will lead to a drop in overall prices, but a rise in prices during the peak period.
Slowly, this smart pricing scheme is introduced into the power grid (
Mainly on a voluntary basis).
Ravi Manghani of GTM Research explains, but if you combine "smart" pricing with solar and energy storage, then there is another potential benefit for homeowners.
They can store excess power for solar panels during the day, and then actually use it when the electricity bill goes up at night --
Avoid higher costs.
"Storing excess solar power and using it at night is economically meaningful," Manghani explained by email . ". (
See here for more explanations. )
It is worth noting that if there is a decrease in the amount of excess electricity that solar panel owners can sell to the grid in the future --
This is one thing that the current boycott of net meteringwants wants to achieve --
The emergence of energy storage technology then provides a new way for panel owners to use this energy.
"Storage adds choice," explains Sean Gallagher, vice president of National Affairs at the solar industry association.
"This is an enabling technology for solar energy.
It allows customers to meet more scenarios economically. ”So in sum —
Cheaper, easier-to-get energy storage helps expand the size of the grid and also helps the level of our family to further utilize cleaner renewable energy.
So if the economy of storage finally starts to rise --
Its business side will accelerate.
This can only be good news for the Earth.
Correction: The previous version of this article states (
A report based on GTM Research)
In 2014, the energy storage market grew by 400% to US $0. 139 billion.
Estimated value of $1.
2019 4 billion.
The numbers have been updated and the correct ones are $ 40%, $0. 128 billion and $1. 5 billion.
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