New Battery and

Company CEO Elon Musk is expected on Thursday to unveil batteries capable of powering a home or a business, giving consumers with solar panels a chance to generate and store their own energy, and to potentially cut the cord with traditional power providers.

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Essentially this means that if you have enough solar power capacity to power some percentage of your home, you no longer have to depend upon the power grid.

a reply to: Kashai

Except that to my knowledge in my state, you legally have to be connected to the grid. I wonder if those laws will ever be reviewed some time soon. I doubt it.

Either way, Elon Musk is awesome and he should be the celebrity (not Kim K) that young kids look up to.

a reply to: Qumulys
I live in Florida here the State pays out 50% of cost if one is willing to set up solar panels for ones home.

Up to $15,000.

The batteries are still too expensive, and they have a limit on how many times they can be charged. I use the same type in my R/C Helicopters and I get about 150 charges per battery, more if I dont drain them too much before charging. Some electric bycicles use the same type of battery, and they get about 300 charges.

They are fantastic batteries, they just need to get the price down by a long way!

Where I live in Canada we have the dreaded smart meters, but you can back feed "green" power into the grid so no batteries are needed.

a reply to: VoidHawk

And that cost would drop if the usage was common place.

Actually you can currently buy extra large batteries and make a battery bank for your home solar setup quite easily. I know many people who have already done it. the average cost is about 300 per battery if you buy them second hand- they are huge and can be run on 24 or 12 watt systems

one friend has about 30 of them and his solar set up is one to envy as well - my goal is to have a similar setup one day unless my hubby gets his permanent magnet generator perfected first

All elon musk is doing is finding a new commercially recognized way to do what rv'ers and off gridders have already been doing

we have a nice battery bank of marine batteries, they don't last forever but last usually for a couple years at least with good maintenance

I am currently looking to stock up on more flexible solar sheets though and they are cheaper now like 129 on ebay

a reply to: Thisisfun2015

I agree but would ask when you mentioned that on ATS?

originally posted by: Qumulys
a reply to: Kashai

Except that to my knowledge in my state, you legally have to be connected to the grid. I wonder if those laws will ever be reviewed some time soon. I doubt it.

Either way, Elon Musk is awesome and he should be the celebrity (not Kim K) that young kids look up to.

Just because you are hooked up to the grid does not mean you have to draw power from it, but you can sell excess power back to the grid.

I read reports from testers of this and in the areas where electric is cheaper at night than during the day those people were charging their batteries at night then selling it back during the day to make a proffit.

One very important way of looking that this is that one has a 3/2 in 2500 square feet and you want to keep the relative temperature and 76 degrees?

Is that literally about a thousand a month (US), including every other electrical devise, one happens to be running in addition to that?

Any thoughts?

originally posted by: VoidHawk
The batteries are still too expensive, and they have a limit on how many times they can be charged. I use the same type in my R/C Helicopters and I get about 150 charges per battery, more if I dont drain them too much before charging. Some electric bycicles use the same type of battery, and they get about 300 charges.

They are fantastic batteries, they just need to get the price down by a long way!

This house battery is warrantied for 10 years so these are not exactly what you are using.

So if it only lasts 10 years then the cost would equal out to approximately 108.34 per month for those 10 years but if it lasts longer which I believe they will then each additional month would bring that down.

a reply to: Kashai

I may be misunderstanding you.

Are you saying a 2500 square foot home should cost $1000 a month to keep that temp because I live in Florida as well and my house is bigger than that. The electric is never over $120 with a pool pump.

a reply to: Grimpachi

I have a house that size in Miami Florida and pay $600 per month with the "Central" A/C at 82 degrees.

I use space heaters and electric blankets in the winter the temp here does not he below 40 degrees (US) at night, their my bill runs about $150.00.

originally posted by: Kashai

Company CEO Elon Musk is expected on Thursday to unveil batteries capable of powering a home or a business, giving consumers with solar panels a chance to generate and store their own energy, and to potentially cut the cord with traditional power providers.

Source

Essentially this means that if you have enough solar power capacity to power some percentage of your home, you no longer have to depend upon the power grid.

Far to many ifs an whens for me to take it serious. If you have the money to burn, go for it. It will cost you more in every way.

a reply to: Kashai

Whoa...

Mine is about 24 years old 4/3 2car garage and I keep it between 76-77 degrees.

My old house by the beach was comparable and electric was about $250 butthat was because of poor insulation and a flat roof. The AC unit was corroded as well.

I can't imagine how your bill is that high.

Personally, I'm eyeing VELKESS for my storage needs a few years down the road when I quit the MIC biz.

I want to go full solar for the farm, and leave the grid entirely. Batteries are sort of a PITA and have a definite lifetime, and I can't fix them if they break. A VELKESS hasn't got a lot of hard failure modes you can't address with a toolkit and a good vacuum pump.

Plus you can get a standby unit that won't die due to self-discharge or dendrite growth like batteries. Just dust it off occasionally and run a scavenge pump to keep the vacuum up.

originally posted by: Thisisfun2015
Actually you can currently buy extra large batteries and make a battery bank for your home solar setup quite easily. I know many people who have already done it. the average cost is about 300 per battery if you buy them second hand- they are huge and can be run on 24 or 12 watt systems

one friend has about 30 of them and his solar set up is one to envy as well - my goal is to have a similar setup one day unless my hubby gets his permanent magnet generator perfected first

All elon musk is doing is finding a new commercially recognized way to do what rv'ers and off gridders have already been doing

we have a nice battery bank of marine batteries, they don't last forever but last usually for a couple years at least with good maintenance

I am currently looking to stock up on more flexible solar sheets though and they are cheaper now like 129 on ebay

12 or 24 watt? An average household circuit produces 1500-1800 watts. 30 of your 24 watts is equivalent to half of a household circuit. Do the cost analysis.

a reply to: Grimpachi

What are they using to charge the batteries?

a reply to: Grimpachi
Its the truth much of Florida is farm land and many of its towns benefit from that. In Miami Beach a gallon of gasoline is at least a dollar more than any where else in Miami-Dade County.

At present we are running about $3.67 for regular Unleaded in the City.

a reply to: randomtangentsrme

It didn't say. But it is called metering.

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