Tesla Energy is Getting Serious – A Battery Powered World?

I just watched a video from the youtube channel cold fusion. It looks like Elon Musk is making moves in pushing forward the field of energy storage.
The video covers a solar plant in Hawaii that uses Tesla's battery units to store energy. Apparently Hawaii currently needs to import fuel to produce electricity.

The batterys are lithium ion and are scalable units that power production facilities can add more if needed.

I'm am personally exited about energy storage whether it is litium ion, flow batterys, or other means. It's a game changer for solar and wind power.
I can only see this technology increasing in efficiency over time.
I hope that it is going to change the whole nature of the energy industry.

Enjoy the Video

Good stuff. And this is just one guy one technology. There are many more people working on similar and complimentary technologies. Coal, Oil and Gas are on the way out. Things are changing for the better.

a reply to: amazing

Yeah I think musk has a lot of push and wants to get the ball rolling ahead of the forecast predictions for energy storage. If he starts showing that it is viable then other company's and technology's will push ahead to compete in the new field of energy storage.

a reply to: SolAquarius

Ummm...these units are scaled for home use as well...



Tesla Power Wall

I'm thinking of purchasing some for my home...


YouSir

a reply to: YouSir

I could see a small town having local wind/solar power production and using some of these units to store power. Instead of relying on some power plant miles away producing their power.
Yeah I also thought about how great this would be for a home and going off the grid literally.

a reply to: SolAquarius

Tesla Energy is Getting Serious – A Battery Powered World?

I love ColdFusion's videos, but that title is misleading and silly. Talking about a battery powered world is as silly as talking about cars powered a by gasoline can.

Batteries are but a container for power - it changes very little in regards to the need for fuel for the power plants, be it nuclear, solar, gas, or coal powered plants. There are enormous environmental challenges associated with production of the batteries and (extraction of) the materials they are made of, and the batteries themselves are wasteful in terms of energy - you feed more energy into batteries than you get out of them.

They are simple a storage medium, nothing more, nothing less.

a reply to: DupontDeux

I think one of the hurdles of solar/wind is it can not be made on demand .Storage would change this. I think the conventional way of thinking of power is not storage based. The coal plant for example predicts the power needs of their customers and burns more coal to supply power and less coal when demand is less yet they don't store power.

Also their are other means of energy storage that does not impact the environment as much as battery production. For example using bodies of water to store air for latter energy use.

Interesting, but after watching PBS Nova "Search for the Super Battery" they consider the best "Energy Storage" is a high water reservoir that can be refilled from a lower reservoir, during the day using solar energy to pump water up and during the night running water down trough generators.

a reply to: manuelram16

Wasn't this part of some project in a small island? Netflix.....

originally posted by: SolAquarius
a reply to: amazing

Yeah I think musk has a lot of push and wants to get the ball rolling ahead of the forecast predictions for energy storage. If he starts showing that it is viable then other company's and technology's will push ahead to compete in the new field of energy storage.

Yeah, I agree. We've seen it with Solar Panel companies already. We're starting to see it with Electric Cars with people modeling Teslas...It's always the innovative entrepreneurs that change the world.

a reply to: Arnie123

Don't know, I just watched the Nova Docu and they discussed the new generation of batteries and energy storage options

We did the math here in Australia on going Tesla and it wasnt viable with current tech. The cost of the batteries and solar and a life span of 10 years did not payfor itself and was more expensive than staying on the grid. But like any tech the demand should drop the cost, we will see.

a reply to: SolAquarius

This should do away with the electricty grid and the high costs of electricty. Here in England the companies have just slapped a £50 standing charge onto the costs.

originally posted by: manuelram16
Interesting, but after watching PBS Nova "Search for the Super Battery" they consider the best "Energy Storage" is a high water reservoir that can be refilled from a lower reservoir, during the day using solar energy to pump water up and during the night running water down trough generators.

Yeah I have thought about this as one possibility. TVA hydroelectric uses similar reservoirs to store power in. Though I really think the Idea of storing compressed air in balloons under water is a really cool idea too.

originally posted by: muSSang
We did the math here in Australia on going Tesla and it wasnt viable with current tech. The cost of the batteries and solar and a life span of 10 years did not payfor itself and was more expensive than staying on the grid. But like any tech the demand should drop the cost, we will see.

We did the same thing here just this week. Also disposal of the batteries after the 10 year predicted life span was going to cost $2,000 to our local council.

We'll watch and wait. We already have a whole roof of solar panels and we're just waiting for the prices and storage options to become more affordable.

Well according to this article Thorium Battery the technology already exists for thorium batteries which would replace any reliance on the grid and indeed wind and solar.

These incredible batteries are very compact and can be made in any size, and one inventor ran his entire house for over a year on a battery the size of a shoebox (Dimitri Petronov) and an American inventor used his battery to power a car for 13 months before he disappeared. The U.S. Navy and NASA have been using this battery for over five years already! I found references to the battery being used in satellites and "super long range torpedoes".

A Harvard professor was writing about this technology as far back as 1998 (Dr. Ramon Khanna).Gavitomagnetic Plasma Battery The U.S. DoE embraced and subsequently sponsored over $40 million of research that resulted in the publication of 5 white papers that were once posted on the internet between 1997-2008, but which all then mysteriously vanished in 2010 without explanation.

Scientifically, plasma is the fourth state of matter, a mix of gas and liquid and plasma energy is exactly what is contained in a lightning bolt. There is enough electric power in a single lightning bolt to power a large city for 6 hours.

From what I understand, this battery does not inherently contain its own electricity that results simply from the physical construction of the battery...

...What I mean is that after these batteries are put together in the factory, they still need to be charged with electricity from somewhere -- and right now that somewhere is the energy grid.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just a different way to deliver electricity produced by the grid? Isn't this still electricity produced by the grid, but delivered by a battery rather than through wires?

a reply to: SolAquarius

This has taken way too long, about time this made history, of the good kind.

a reply to: Box of Rain

Yes your right the battery does not produce energy but merely stores energy.

It doesn't make a difference for electricity produced from burning fossil fuels, generating hydropower, or nuclear.
All the above can produce energy on demand for peak needs. The coal plant simply burns more coal as needed. The hydroelectric dam simply lets more water through to generate electricity. The nuclear plant just increases the reaction in the reactor and they all put it out on the grid as needed

For solar and wind it is not the same. The wind is not always blowing. The sun gets blocked by clouds and isn't around during the night. Sometimes a lot of energy is being produced but there is no demand at the time so it is lost energy.

Battery's or other storage means are a game changer for the wind/solar industry. It allows them to store power when a lot is being generated but demand is low. Say it's night time and city needs to power it's lights but the solar company can't generate power during the night because the sun is gone. Well the solar company simply puts the power they have stored in the batteries during the daytime on to the grid to meet energy needs.

Power storage is one of the major hurdles for wind and solar.
Once solutions are found for power storage solar and wind can truly challenge fossil fuel generated power.

a reply to: muSSang

Didn't Tesla make some sort of deal that if it didn't pan out cost wise Australia would get to keep the system no charge?
Can you give more details as to why it didn't work out?
Is there a competitive system to Teslas?