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Title: Forbes: Why Tesla's Powerwall Is Just Another Toy For Rich Green People
Source:
Forbes.com
URL Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christo ... her-toy-for-rich-green-people/
Published: May 1, 2015
Author: Christopher Helman
Post Date: 2015-05-03 14:46:55 by Operation 40
Keywords: Tesla, Battery, Energy
Views: 2789
Comments: 7
All the breathless coverage of Elon Musk’s Powerwall battery brouhaha last night is missing the most important thing: a sober discussion of real-world costs. So let’s take a look at the costs and see if this world-shaking, game-changing innovation really makes any sense. Musk said Tesla’s 7 kwh capacity battery would cost $3,000, while the 10 kwh capacity one would be $3,500. (That doesn’t include the cost of a DC-AC inverter – about $4,000 $2,000– plus professional installation.) The implication is that a 10 kwh system could supply 1,000 watts of current to your home for 10 hours. That’s a good amount of energy. The average American home draws an average of 1,200 watts of power around-the-clock, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. For a sense of scale, a desktop computer draws about 100 watts, a big TV 200 watts. Refrigerators cycle on and off, but average about 100 watts. So how much is that battery power going to cost? Setting aside for a moment the cost of making that electricity in the first place, let’s look at just the cost of using the battery to store it and get it out again. Researcher Winfried Hoffman, the former CTO of Applied Materials , has done some interesting work on the falling costs of battery power. He figures that for a lithium-ion system with an initial installation cost of $400 per kwh capacity, 80% efficiency and ability to run 5,000 cycles, the average cost of stored electricity will be 15 cents per kwh. This might be conservative. Solar installer Sungevity is working with a German battery company called Sonnenbattery, which claims it can do 10,000 cycles. But this calculation might also not be conservative enough. It’s unclear how many cycles you could expect to get out of Powerwall. Tesla says its 7 kwh Powerwall can cycle daily, while the 10 kwh system would cycle weekly. The cost of the battery is amortized over the total amount of electricity cycled through it over its lifetime. The less you use it, the higher your average unit cost. Either way, 15 cents per kwh for battery storage seems ball-park reasonable. To get your real electricity cost, you have to add to that 15 cent battery charge whatever you’re paying for that electricity in the first place. Since the idea is that batteries will work in tandem with solar, we’ll look at what Tesla’s sister company SolarCity charges its customers. According to SolarCity, a customer pays no upfront costs for a system, but then gets dinged for 15 cents per kwh of power generated. In the contract, SolarCity has the ability to increase that rate 2.9% a year, which doesn’t seem like much, but would end up raising your cost per kwh above 20 cents by the end of the 20 year term. So adding together your 15 cents per kwh for solar power plus the 15 cents to cycle a kwh in and out of the battery, and you’re looking at 30 cents per kwh for electricity. I think 30 cents per kwh is bonkers. At my home in Texas I pay 10 cents per kwh to Reliant Energy for electricity that is mostly generated by natural gas burning power plants. Nationwide , the average retail electricity price is 12.5 cents per kWh, according to the Dept. of Energy. Now I understand that power prices are considerably higher in California and Hawaii and other parts of the world with shoddy power grids, but in the vast majority of the United States no one pays anything close to 30 cents per kWh for electricity. But it gets worse. Let’s think some more about the real utility of this Powerwall system. According to the Dept. of Energy, the average home uses 10,900 kWh per year, which equates to about 900 kWh per month or an average round-the-clock power demand of 1,200 watts. Now with some attention to efficiency, the average home could probably get itself down to 1,000 watts of power demand on average, which would probably be low enough that Tesla’s 10 kwh Powerwall battery could handle the loads for about half the day...SNIP ...And here’s where the economics of the Powerwall break down. If you do not have a big enough solar system to get your home entirely off the grid, then there is simply no point whatsoever in paying 30 cents per kwh to get electricity via the Powerwall. At night, when you’re not generating solar power, you could simply get your electricity from the grid. For an average 12.5 cents a kwh...SNIP Complete article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2015/05/01/why-teslas-powerwall-is-just-another-toy-for-rich-green-people/
Elon "Enron" Musk introduces his latest tax credit scam
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#3. To: Operation 40 (#0)
I don't think I would have said that. Search out internet libel cases when you get a chance.
So this clown with hair plugs can scamper around calling Fuel Cells "Fool Cells" and "Bullsh*t" but people can't call him and his scams what they are? Bullsh*t. He's a scam artist. His cars aren't all that. But his companies wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the gullibility of the taxpayer. Everyone that thinks this Musk is a genius should read this: The fundamental reason this blog exists is to tell the world about the fraud Tesla is committing. This has resulted in tens of millions dollars’ worth of fraudulent carbon credits being received by the company, and if nothing is done the tally will get into the hundreds of millions. This blog exists not to tell people about EV incentives, but about the illegal incentives a particular EV company is getting. I covered much of the same ground in my first post, but here I’ll give California’s own regulations as sources. You don’t have to take my word for it... Have you heard anything about this "Battery Swap" lately? No. Because there is only one swap station, you need to be "invited" to use it, you have to pay ~$80 and you have to return to the swap station to have your original $20,000 battery re- installed. Oh- and you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. That's why you haven't seen any videos of an actual "battery swap". Do YOU think taking taxpayer money from the poor and middle class to subsidize rich men's $100,000 cars is a good idea? Especially when these cars are going to need a new $20,000+ part in 6 or 8 years? It would have been another story if Musk-Rat had decided to actually build an affordable electric car for the masses. But that would have been too hard. One can begin to understand how Jim Jones managed to do what he did by studying this Musk character.
#7. To: Operation 40 (#6)
It's one thing to make the argument on an internet forum. Quite another to have to convince a court that this is indeed a tax scam. Just seems like a foolish thing to say in a publication.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestElon "Enron" Musk introduces his latest tax credit scam
#6. To: kenh (#3)
I don't think I would have said that. Search out internet libel cases when you get a chance.
The Tesla battery swap is the hoax of the year
What California says about zero-emission vehicles, and why Tesla is committing fraud
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/21/the-tesla-battery-swap-is-the-hoax-of-the-year/
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