Pops wrote:Again, for perspective, millions of people have been cut off for days at a time this summer due to high winds and potential power line sparked fires. As far as I've heard they aren't ripping out their meters. And if they did get really mad, the average home in CA is "worth" $699,000, and a single Powerwall is 1% of that, installed, at <3% interest.
To be fair though, will a single Powerwall do it, for days at a time? For a household using lots of A/C, computers, TV's, doing cooking and all the usual things families do? I don't think so. If you start talking about 3 or more Powerwalls, that cost gets rather significant.
One such battery would work well for me for a few days, but I'm used to conserving (using about 400 KWH a month vs. the 2000+ KWH average I see cited for my area households), and I would be VERY careful with power load during an outage -- just as I am conservative with my Generac generator, just not to work it harder than needed, even though it can handle literally all we could throw at it rather easily, when testing it as the final installation step. (Just as my car will last a lot longer if I don't floor it a lot).
And 3 or more such Powerwall batteries would cost a LOT more than my whole house 20 KW Generac generator, installed, that will run for weeks and weeks on NG, and all it needs is to have the oil level checked (and add a little if needed) once a day during such an extended event. (A 5 minute no-brainer task.) Mine is 8+ years old. I had a part fail the first time a few months back. My maintenance guy assures me that does NOT mean it will become unreliable over all -- that part just is one that tends to fail at some point). Also, my Generac, sitting 30 feet from my house won't potentially burst into flames and burn down my house. Given the way those batteries burn in Teslas, I'm not at all convinced I want one, much less 3 to 5, in my house -- or even mounted on an exterior wall.
That might well become normal in a decade or so as costs, batteries, etc. improve -- I'm just not convinced we're there yet for typical homeowners, given the trade-offs.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.