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Two days ago, Elon Musk of Tesla delivered a keynote presentation of the new Tesla line of lithium batteries for storing power, whether from solar, wind, hydro, or mule! The "Powerwall" is a compact unit (available in many colors) that hangs on your wall and stores 10kWh of electrical power. At this time, the cost is $3500 (my own first bank of 8 lead-acid cells cost me $2500) for the battery. You can "gang mount" up to 9 of these units, for a massive 90kWh of stored power. I'd be happy with the 10kWh!
Here is his 18-minute keynote presentation, which I found outstanding, and well worth watching!
Most assuredly it will. New 'tech' is always pricey at first. Actually, it's not that bad a price, as it is....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Above Average Bear
This guy is a freakin genius, I gotta buy some of his stock!
That might be a good idea. Batteries for cars is one thing; for houses, is quite another!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ognend
Yes, truly revolutionary. I am hoping to some time have one of these babies too.
You and me both.
Our first bank of 8 was bought a year ago this month. Our 2nd bank of 8 was purchased last November, to run the big freezer (we processed poultry in November). So we are set for another 5-8 years or so. Plenty of time to keep an eye on these Tesla batteries, and see how they work out!
Would these batteries be a good alternative to a home generator?
Depends on your system as the batteries have to be charged from some source, and you need to balance your needs to the amp hours stored in the batteries to know if you need to recharge them again.
You could set up a system where the batteries are charged from the grid and only kick in when there's an outage, but if the outage continues for very long, you would need a generator of some kind, gas, diesel, natural gas, solar or wind to recharge them to keep going.
Would these batteries be a good alternative to a home generator?
Not better or worse, but different.
Batteries only do one thing: store power. You need to generate that power somehow, in order to store it. Solar is becoming very popular as a way to generate power, as is wind and hydro. But "generating" power is something that a generator does. But it does not store power; once you turn the generator off, the power stops. You can use these batteries to store power from a generator - we sometimes do that with our lead-acid batteries in winter, when the sun is very weak, or not out at all (e.g. it's snowing). For us, 3.5 hours of generator use will charge our batteries for a full 24-hours' worth of use, which is better than running the generator 24/7 for power.
Batteries are a wonderful thing! But they are not an alternative to a generator.
Would these batteries be a good alternative to a home generator?
Solar panels + such a battery and you should be set.
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