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THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sat 07 Jan 2017, 08:40:56

baha wrote:There are countless different types of Lithium batteries. Different chemistries and materials. That's why there are two types of Tesla batteries. One is for daily cycles and the other is for occasional backup. The makeup of these batteries is different.

The daily cycle battery is designed to cycle...if you leave it fully charged for a long period it will be unhappy. It is meant to be used.

The backup battery is designed to wait. If you cycle it every day it will degrade.

So you need to know what you plan to do with it.

Would you happen to know off hand how much lithium Tesla's Giga factory will consume per year?
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sat 07 Jan 2017, 10:13:12

baha wrote:Don't have a number, I'm sure it's significant...But what you are talking about is more jobs. http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/lithium-t ... ne-nevada/

There will be new infrastructure built and jobs created and who knows what the $ tradeoff will be...but it leads in a sustainable direction. Just like Aluminum, Lithium will be cheaper to recycle than mine. Unlike FFs it will still be in there after the battery is dead.

I was just contemplating the dent that Giga factory would make in the worlds supply.
I've found that current production is about 35,000 tonnes a year and that is expected to more then double shortly. Also from various sources prices can vary from $10,000 to $25,000 per tonne but some of that was stock scam hype.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 07 Jan 2017, 12:47:22

I will mention that I invested $7500 in the Cape Wind offshore wind farm about a decade ago. Although Obama called it "shovel ready" in 2007 during his first campaign, I have slowly realized that I am never going to see any return on that money.

I have also related the cost of PV electricity here in sunny California in a message in this thread dated May 21, 2016. My grid-attached solar roof produces energy at a cost of $0.31/kWh. In an off-grid situation, the cost with Powerwall batteries would be $0.59/kWh, because I would need more panels plus batteries. I should note that I am a retired Electrical Engineer and I have been monitoring my PV roof for what will be 7 years in July of this year. The cost of Chinese-made PV panels has decreased by about 35% during that same period, but labor costs have increased slightly, today that same solar roof would be implemented at an electricity cost of about $0.28/kWh.

You appear to be confusing the ongoing costs of capital expenditures with fuel costs for power generation. Solar PV has zero fuel costs but very high capital expenditures and these are even higher with battery storage. My 2.8 kVA rooftop solar is both undersized for off-grid usage and lacks battery storage. I am in a near-ideal location for solar power in sunny California and in a near-ideal regulatory environment, with both Federal tax rebates and State of California tax rebates under the CSI (California Solar Initiative), and state-mandated "net metering", which forces the power company to purchase back my piddly little 2.8kW of power at retail electricity rates.

I would not be willing to teach you the mathematics of Capex in this forum, it is a long and involved discussion, and I would recommend an Economics textbook instead. I will summarize what is happening when I say that the Feds and the State of California are overcharging everybody around me for their electricity and rewarding those of us with Solar PV by in effect giving us OPM (other people's money). That $0.28/kWh is expensive electricity for a US state, but the CARB (California Air Resources Board) has increased the cost of electricity in this state with decades of tinkering. The US average cost for grid electricity is about 1/3rd lower than in California, and the wholesale electrical cost is about $0.12/kWh for the "green" electricity that we buy from Texas. (Note that these are burdened costs, not simple cost-of-fuel figures.)

Bottom line is that because of all the government meddling with grid electricity, I have saved about $2200 on my electrical bill in six and a half years. In a state without solar incentives I would be paying a lot less for power, consequently there would also be fewer reasons to add PV panels to my roof.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby diemos » Sat 07 Jan 2017, 19:11:53

KaiserJeep wrote: I will summarize what is happening when I say that the Feds and the State of California are overcharging everybody around me for their electricity and rewarding those of us with Solar PV by in effect giving us OPM (other people's money).


The grid operators have been putting up with this because it put off the day when they would have to site and build new power lines. An expensive regulatory nightmare.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 07 Jan 2017, 19:33:25

diemos wrote:-snip-

The grid operators have been putting up with this because it put off the day when they would have to site and build new power lines. An expensive regulatory nightmare.


Yes, quite correct. However the present regulatory environment is also much more optimal for implementing renewable energies while taking advantage of an uneven playing field.

In my planned move to Wisconsin and my hoped-for newly-constructed passive home, I hope to have Tesla's solar roofing and Powerwall batteries over both house and garage and a wind turbine which will still be charging on cold Winter nights. The house design we have settled on is a distinct style called Early New England saltbox:
Image
Hopefully, the Tesla roofing will be on the larger roof area, facing S, with perhaps more such solar PV on the garage, since I plan to have at least on longer-ranged EV.

The basic idea is a superinsulated home, all electric, off-grid, energy plus design, that requires no hydrocarbons be burned - not even wood - for HVAC or cooking or other systems. I believe that this can be done for a price premium of +35% over simple building-code-compliant home design.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 07 Jan 2017, 20:18:36

In fact, the power grid high tension high voltage transmission lines are designed for longevity and low maintenance expenses. The problem is with the "last mile" power transmission which often involves wooden poles, overloaded transformers, and crappy contractor-installed, barely compliant building wiring, all poorly protected from lightning strikes.

If I was a power company, I'd be all in favor of grid-attached distributed solar, which would make my life less annoying. However those off-grid residences would be worrisome, if your business was generating power (or buying it wholesale) and selling it retail.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sun 08 Jan 2017, 08:34:30

KaiserJeep wrote:
diemos wrote:-snip-

The grid operators have been putting up with this because it put off the day when they would have to site and build new power lines. An expensive regulatory nightmare.


Yes, quite correct. However the present regulatory environment is also much more optimal for implementing renewable energies while taking advantage of an uneven playing field.

In my planned move to Wisconsin and my hoped-for newly-constructed passive home, I hope to have Tesla's solar roofing and Powerwall batteries over both house and garage and a wind turbine which will still be charging on cold Winter nights. The house design we have settled on is a distinct style called Early New England saltbox:
Image
Hopefully, the Tesla roofing will be on the larger roof area, facing S, with perhaps more such solar PV on the garage, since I plan to have at least on longer-ranged EV.

The basic idea is a superinsulated home, all electric, off-grid, energy plus design, that requires no hydrocarbons be burned - not even wood - for HVAC or cooking or other systems. I believe that this can be done for a price premium of +35% over simple building-code-compliant home design.

That is an awfully big saltbox for a retired couple. How many grandkids do you have coming to visit?
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Tue 10 Jan 2017, 02:39:48

baha wrote:And as far as your neighbors paying for your power, that's as it should be...we are all paying for the effects of burning FFs too.
They had the same thought in Spain and Nevada. But it turns out government subsidies were not as stable as some hoped. One day the government decided they were going to cut the gravy train of Solar subsidies. And the Solar industry in Spain & Nevada collapsed as a result.

One of the main producers of renewable energy in Europe, Spain’s solar industry, is edging toward bankruptcy. Producers say they’ll be unable to repay credits after the government’s decision to cut subsidies. Banks will suffer and jobs will be lost.

Energy Minister José Manuel Soria has introduced a new compensation plan for calculating levels of "reasonable profitability" for renewable-energy production, distribution and transportation. It will reduce payments to companies serving the nation's electrical system by up to 2.7 billion euro annually. It’s hoped the move could help cope with the electricity system deficit that has been growing since 2005 and now exceeds 25 billion euro.

Experts are warning that with the increased levies on self-consumed solar energy so high many households will have to pay more for the electricity they generate themselves than they would for regular grid power. The main trade association for Spain's electric utilities which distribute most the country's electricity said "the cuts will compel our member companies to undertake a drastic reduction in jobs and review their investments in Spain"

Spain has over 4GW of installed capacity. For several years the government reportedly pushed electricity retailers to pay above-market, unaffordable prices to renewable-power producers. In 2012 clean energy subsidies in Spain hit 8.6 billion euro, nearly 1 percent of GDP. To fund the expansion, Spanish banks lent the solar-energy companies nearly 30 billion euro. Potential loan defaults could worsen the already heavy burden on Spanish banks.
Spain’s solar industry to collapse

Louise Helton, owner of One Sun Solar Electric in Las Vegas, says that since January her company is doing more work removing solar panels from rooftops than installing them. “During the recession, rooftop solar was the bright spot in the Nevada economy,” Helton tells DeSmog. “We were booming. And now we’re dead.”

By removing a key incentive for rooftop solar customers — net metering — the PUC made it prohibitively expensive for existing and future solar customers to use solar panels to generate part or all or their electricity needs. And it turned electricity-generating rooftop panels from a net-plus for homeowners to a technological albatross.

“Seniors have tried to make the right decision to preserve their future dollars. All of this is impacting them. Now the value of your greatest asset, a home, and the equity, for solar panels to present themselves as something that was a huge asset, now they’re the opposite. It’s devastating.”

Nevada Hemorrhages Solar Jobs
Since January, national rooftop solar companies SolarCity and Sunrun have stopped seeking new business in the state and laid off hundreds of workers. The few small companies left are trying to stay above water and telling potential customers to be patient and wait out the storm. “My feeling is 80 percent of all (small solar) companies are gone”
We Were Booming and Now We're Dead" — How Nevada's Solar Industry Bright Spot Turned Dark
The oil barrel is half-full.
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