
Megapack: Utility-Scale Energy Storage - jjallen
https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-megapack-utility-scale-energy-storage
======
ggm
The energy regulatory model in Australia is complex, and broken. And rather
than simplifying it, it is going to be made even more complex, and probably
more broken, to resolve the problems.

Tesla is not the problem, the 30 minute bidding model, and the state/federal
divide on energy policy, and the monopoly capital rent-seeking behaviour of
encumbent privatized generators using coal and gas, and guaranteed yields on
capital investment, and weak regulatory oversight, and a lack of national
coordination, maybe they are the problem.

But Tesla exposes the problem: the Neoen battery stack has been fantastic, but
needs to be kept in perspective: To use this for more than FCAS (frequency
stability services) nationwide, means re-building the national transmission
grid to favour battery models. Parliamentarians got up on their hind hooves
and brayed about how it couldn't keep lightbulbs on for more than 20 minutes
and was a waste of money: They didn't for one minute admit it wasn't designed
as a longterm power store, but as a frequency-control store, stability, and
for peak-price bidding to cap off supply-price disfunctions, its working fine:
Something like 60% of its capacity is for private bid to earn money, 40%
contracted to the state for their goals. It is a real game changer but needs
to be understood, its not like a Pumped Hydro unit, or a synchronous condenser
(although it is more like that, than PHES) It is its own beast. Its response
speed is so fast, the regulatory behaviour models have to adapt to cope with
it.

A Five minute bid pricing model is coming in under 2 years I think. I hope the
majors don't work out a way to "game" it because my hope is, other mega-scale
battery and PH systems will be onstream then, and be able to survive in it,
and drive some more coal and gas out of the system.

We have a fictional belief in "base load" power here rather than responsive
power. We also lack useful tools like demand management which can be used to
bid alongside supply for pricing to avoid having to turn on nasty dirty
generators, when the option to time-shift load exists (supermarkets and places
with huge thermal mass can time-shift their AC and cooling or heating budget,
and so avoid load)

Meantime, people are arguing for a de-centralized model using household
batteries where resilience is kept in the customer distribution net, as well
as at the transmission net level. There are competing pressures around "how
shall we fix it" which are not simple.

If you want to read a good overview of this, look for stuff written by John
Quiggin, an economist in Queensland who has written on the stuff-ups in
privatized energy supply in Australia and the market failure.

~~~
KUcxrAVrtI
> means re-building the national transmission grid to favour battery models.

You literally can't store enough energy in batteries to power the network.
Yesterdays demand for SA was [0] 218,247,760 kWh. At even the most optimistic
battery price no one has ever managed to achieve as scale of $100 USD per kWh
betteries that's $21,824,776,000 (21 Billion Dollars) for one state, in
Australia.

You need to double or triple that to deal with summer heat waves, having
enough storage to deal with intermittent renewables etc. You'd be looking at
$200 billion for SA alone, with 1.7mil people, to move to battery power,
without any of the infrastructure change.

Oh and lithium ion batteries lose half their charge every 10 years or less. So
you will need to invest $100 billion every decade. That's $128,381 per person
in SA to move to battery power once, and then $6,419.05 per year to replace
the lost capacity.

This is a pipe dream wilder than cold fusion.

[0] [https://www.aemo.com.au/](https://www.aemo.com.au/)

~~~
jillesvangurp
> Oh and lithium ion batteries lose half their charge every 10 years or less.

Most Teslas sold today will still be driving with their original batteries and
well over 60-70% of their capacity well beyond ten years. Tesla warranty
actually covers them up to 8 years up to 70%. Meaning they are fully confident
they can promise that and keep their money in the bank.

> even the most optimistic battery price no one has ever managed to achieve as
> scale of $100 USD per kWh

Cost keeps dropping: [https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-
ion-b...](https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-battery-
prices/). Ten years is a lot of time and Tesla just announced the desire/goal
to increase production capacity to about 1 Twh/year (i.e. about a 35x change
relative to production today). Whatever the cost is going to be in ten years,
it's going to be nowhere near what it is today. Well below 100$/kwh in ten
years certainly.

> Yesterdays demand for SA was [0] 218,247,760 kWh.

You seem to assume a complete lack of wind and solar on a day (unlikely) is
going to require 100% battery reserve. That scenario is very unlikely. It
might happen locally a couple of times per year but you could simply import
power for regions elsewhere in Australia via a cable. Or you could install
some over capacity solar to ensure that even at reduced efficiency you still
get some power and use the surplus that you end up having for other purposes
(clean water, producing hydrogen, etc.).

In any case, nobody is talking about rolling out that much battery. So we're
talking way less battery that will cost less than you assume and lasts much
longer than you assume and that will allow for the retirement of some very
expensive aging coal/gas plants (which you should factor into your numbers).

~~~
adrianN
And Tesla batteries are living a harsher life than grid storage cells. Thermal
management, charge levels, and charging speeds are much more difficult to
balance in a car than in a grid battery.

------
drcross
I sincerely hope that Tesla can increase cell production to keep up with
demand for all their products.

When you look at product lines like this it makes you realise the scale and
breadth of Elon Musk's influence and even if only half of his endeavours prove
to be as successful as they seem like they will be he will be written about
extensively in history books.

~~~
samstave
Someone on HN had a wonderful writeup previously about ALL the companies Musk
is building are directly applicable to colonizing mars...

He is piloting and testing them all as colonization building blocks here
first.

However - I wish that he would start by building a moon base first...

~~~
inopinatus
I believe the standard working hypothesis is that Elon Musk is a lonely alien
trying to get home, and started a car company because it seemed nicely
inconspicuous.

~~~
icebraining
s/started/joined/

~~~
inopinatus
Okay, but no quibble re. the lonely alien part?

~~~
icebraining
I'm agnostic on that :)

------
Iv
As much as I love what Tesla is doing there, I'd like to point out that they
are not the only or even the biggest player ine the field:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_storage_power_station#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_storage_power_station#Largest_grid_batteries)

There are other tech than lithium ion (namely, Sodium-sulphur) that seem more
appropriate for applications where weight is not an issue.

~~~
Cthulhu_
The downside on those ones seems to be that they need to be heated (and kept
at a heat) of 300-350 degrees and they are quite corrosive if there is an
emergency. Not saying li-ion batteries are safe, but they and how Tesla has
modularized them give me a lot more confidence to leave in an unattended
location. Of course, it's all situational so there's a place and purpose for
these things as well.

~~~
rthomas6
If weight/volume is not an issue, there are lots and lots of technologies that
will work well for energy storage. Compressed air, flywheels, heated water,
lead-acid.

~~~
tomp
Are those (e.g. flywheels, compressed air) production-ready or just start-up
ideas? Also flywheels have a pretty destructive worst-case failure mode...

> heated water

How does that work (specifically for storing _electricity_ )?

~~~
fulafel
Re energy storage generally, heating is a top energy user in many parts of the
world and I think relevant to the conversation. In places with CHP plants and
district heating systems, the thermal battery concept is tried and tested.
Since the system is already based on circulating hot water around, putting
some storage tanks/caverns in the system is straightforward.

------
WalterBright
One thing puzzles me. LI batteries are appropriate for cars because of their
high energy density. But for grid applications, density is not much of an
issue. They can have large, heavy batteries. So why not use a cheaper/joule
battery technology for grid applications?

~~~
jillesvangurp
That might happen long term but short term the lack of production capacity is
the problem. And right now a lot of companies are investing in vastly
expanding production capacity for lithium ion batteries. We've simply never
needed batteries at this scale before EVs started happening.

Tesla seems early in the grid storage market. Probably some companies are
trying to come up with cheaper ways to do that. So, long term, I think cost
will go down by quite a bit. Ten years from now, there will probably be a few
companies cranking out cheap batteries for grid and domestic use that are
optimized for $/kwh instead of kg/kwh.

~~~
CPLX
> We've simply never needed batteries at this scale before EVs started
> happening.

Is that _really_ true?

There a a LOT of lead acid batteries out there, considering there's been at
least one sold alongside nearly every internal combustion engine larger than a
handheld tool.

------
sidcool
This is actually huge. Tesla is again thinking and executing way ahead of
anyone else. I don't attribute it all to Elon Musk. But there is some life
force in Tesla that's pushing it along even when naysayers, sometimes
criminally, try to destroy Tesla.

~~~
skewbone
There are other players in the modular utility scale energy storage space. GE
and Fluence are two examples.

[https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/hybrid/battery-energy-
sto...](https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/hybrid/battery-energy-storage)

[https://fluenceenergy.com/](https://fluenceenergy.com/)

~~~
sidcool
Yes, but Tesla is actually doing equally good or better than the incumbents.
And this is on top of a car company. It is hard to overstate what Tesla has
achieved. There is a reason why Tesla has crazy fans.

~~~
ztratar
What do you think is a mistake Tesla is currently making?

I may agree with you in part, but overall your tone is just so overwhelmingly
positive it makes me curious where you have dissonance?

~~~
sidcool
Not sure if my comment seemed otherwise, but I am overwhelmingly pro Tesla.

------
boringg
What Tesla did -- use the contract from Australia as a MVP for their generic
utility scale product offering. Took their lessons learned from the Australian
offering and streamlined it so they can make an "easy" product for deployment
reducing custom costs. A good marketing piece for any utility considering
installing a product of similar specs. Also distracts from some of the other
narratives taking place.

~~~
Pfhreak
> A good marketing piece for any utility

This seems like a win-win-win to me. Tesla gets paid, the utility gets to show
off how cool they are (and how they are investing in going green) without
breaking the bank, and the rest of us (hopefully) experience less carbon
emissions.

Ideally, that utility runs the battery for a while and it proves to be
useful/profitable enough that they decided to change some of their future
plans to include more renewable/battery tech.

------
S_A_P
I don’t always agree with the way he’s conducted himself and I don’t
understand why people overshare on Twitter when the upside is minuscule and
downside is huge. But Elon does seem to be pushing make the world a better
place. I’ve a feeling he will be viewed more favorably by future generations.
I work in energy and I am super excited to see alternatives to fossil fuels
come online.

------
nisten
The impressive thing is that this is competitive even before we have a carbon
market in place which would make all gas peaker plants too expensive if they
had to pay a market rate for dumping/storing their carbon.

------
ethagknight
I wonder why Tesla is selling these systems instead of deploying them directly
and profiting off the arbitrage? If Autobidder was as good as they imply, then
realistically Tesla should be in position to capitalize off global energy
markets on their own, earning far more than just the sale of the system.

~~~
dflock
To do that would require them to _become_ a power company in each jurisdiction
that they wanted to do this in. Those markets are generally highly regulated -
the amount of distraction & overhead this would create would be staggering,
_immense_.

I think Tesla already has enough on it's plate.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Actually they will do this by selling to consumers directly as well with the
same technology. They are getting ready to sell solar + battery directly to
home owners at a huge scale (bottle-necked on some production capacity issues
currently). Once they get there, they will have a virtual power plant that
they can operate and control. So, Tesla is going there but just not in the way
people expect. In the same way vehicle to the grid technology is a substantial
battery resource that people overlook. Not a stretch of the imagination that a
battery + solar solution for your home would play really nice with the Tesla
parked in front of it. Vehicle to the grid technology already exists. There's
just no way that they are not planning for that.

~~~
dflock
That seems fairly obvious to me - SolarCity/Tesla have always talked about
building a "virtual" utility via residential solar+battery, with the cars
working as an (occasionally) mobile battery component.

But the OP's question was why don't Tesla install MegaPaks that they own
themselves, into diverse energy markets around the world - and become a
traditional utility.

------
sp332
"on a three-acre footprint"

Is there a reason these installations are always shown laid out very flat? Is
there a disadvantage to stacking them up or at least putting them on different
floors of an appropriately-reinforced building?

~~~
FluffyKitty
Probably just the simple economics of cost of land vs cost of construction of
a new building + ongoing maintenance.

I'm sure if they ever saw need to place this in a city they would construct a
building. But for now, it's probably cheaper to just build out where land is
cheap (and possibly closer to generation source) and then transport the energy
to where it's being used.

~~~
malandrew
How safe would it be to put large quantities of a potentially unstable alkali
metal in close proximity to lots of humans?

~~~
core-questions
I mean, we all sleep with phones under our pillow, so

~~~
jedberg
I'll have you know that my phone is _at least_ eight inches away from my head
at night.

------
dantheman
This is fantastic, incremental progress like this adds up quickly.

------
lazyjones
I'd imagine that this minimum size of 3MWh is ideal for fast charging
locations, combined with solar panels on the roof. A by-product of SCv3
development? If it costs around $200/KWh or less, it's very attractive for a
variety of commercial applications with PV capability and non-uniform
electricity needs.

~~~
eyesee
I would not be surprised if Megapacks are what will power the Megachargers for
the forthcoming Tesla Semi. A simple-to-deploy solution for carriers that
doesn’t require significant site prep. Inverter power output of 1.5MW would
align very well with the stated charge rate and buffering 3MW of energy is
probably sufficient for 2 full charges without requiring a massive and rapid
draw on the grid.

~~~
castratikron
Fast charge is DC, they wouldn't use an inverter. Theoretically if the semi
can handle it and the voltage were the same they could connect the semi pack
directly to the megapack battery to charge. It would only get you to 80%
charge but it would be simple to implement.

~~~
eyesee
The inverter could be used to recharge the Megapack from power mains. Though
if it is connected to a solar array the inverter might be skipped. I'm sure
they can exclude that component for such installations.

------
Causality1
I'd be interested in an examination of how the purchasers and vendors of these
battery storage installations manage the balance of capacity and life
expectancy vs wasted cost. If you build an installation that exactly matches
your needs, you're putting a full charge cycle on the batteries on a regular
basis, which reduces their ultimate lifespan and limits your ability to cope
with unusual power demands.

On the other hand, if you overbuild for your needs, you increase the total
lifespan of the installation and your emergency capacity but at the cost of
greater initial investment as well as the inescapable fact that even the
unused portion of the capacity has a finite lifespan which is always (very
slowly) expiring regardless of whether it's being used, so your per-dollar
lifespan could be lower with a larger capacity.

I'm also interested in how well real-world installations are matching the
expected figures when it comes to amortized cost and life expectancy. Does the
operating budget for something like the Hornsdale Power Reserve include the
cost of replacing the entire thing when its cells are worn out in 10-15 years?

~~~
Cthulhu_
It likely wouldn't be a big bang replace job, just a few cells / year. That
won't do much for the total cost of ownership, but would avoid bursts. Also, I
don't know what that would cost, nor how much the alternative solutions
currently in place cost. I'm sure Tesla will spin it so that their TCO looks a
lot more attractive than their competitors.

Also, who knows where battery technology might be in ten years; given that
these are modular batteries, they could replace them over time with higher
capacity ones.

------
state_less
This is good news! Are there competitors in this space or is Tesla going to
absorb marketshare for the next few years? It seems like it could be a very
big market.

I'd be happy if we end up seeing more inexpensive battery production.

------
rsuelzer
I assume they are just using a bunch of 18650 cells?

~~~
matahwoosh
probably 2170, but yeah, small cylindrical batteries

------
_-_T_-_
Tesla has been quietly installing 'powerpacks' in New Zealands power grid for
the past two years.

------
amelius
For comparison, 3 MWh allows a MacBook Pro to run for about 15 years
continuously.

------
abdullahkhalids
Anyone have any estimate on the cost of these Megapacks?

~~~
epistasis
The best number I've heard for the Australian battery is $500/kWh after full
installation. Individual battery cells are less, but inverters, packaging, and
heat control add up.

I'd guess that for a big install they could probably get closer to $350/kWh
these days, but that's a WAG.

~~~
Cthulhu_
So one of these units would cost 1-1.5 million (if my math is correct) - that
doesn't actually sound too expensive for utilities like this, especially given
how operating costs would be lower than the gas peaker wotsits that were
mentioned earlier.

------
dharma1
Awesome. I hope they get a ton of orders. These will probably use the dry
battery electrode tech they got from Maxwell?

------
cagenut
They say it scales _up_ to 3MWh but whats the smallest purchasable unit?

~~~
Animats
The Powerwall.

------
m3kw9
When they have large purchasing power they have price leverage on cells

------
Faaak
When they come to Europe (CH at least), Tesla's gonna eat up the lunch (in the
ancillary services field at least) of everyone. Even more so with the new
renewable capacity added every day.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I dunno, it seems like the function of these Megapacks is to replace natural
gas driven peaker plants? Europe doesn't have nearly as many of those as the
US does.

AFAIK Switzerland in particular has exactly zero, thanks to all that lovely
hydropower that can be turned on and off to match solar/wind fluctuations.

In fact, Switzerland alone has hydropower equivalent to 10 000 Megapacks. This
basically means you can install all the renewables you want.

~~~
eisa01
The coal and nuclear phase outs across Europe will lead to a need for new
flexible capacity. That should at least partly be covered by battery peakers.

~~~
CarVac
Nuclear isn't flexible capacity; plants are always run at max output. If it is
to be phased out the replacement needs to have more long-term output than a
battery, unless the renewables become incredibly overprovisioned.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Nuclear isn't flexible capacity; plants are always run at max output.

In France and Germany, nuclear reactors are configured and permitted to run in
load following mode. It's harder on the valves and similar equipment, but it
can and is done. [1]

> unless the renewables become incredibly overprovisioned.

Which is the likely outcome, as solar and wind are still declining in cost and
in some places the cost is as low as 2 cents/kwh. The generation will be cheap
(what's the old saying? "too cheap to meter"?), and it'll be the storage
that'll cost a bit more.

[1] [https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/nea-
news-29-2-lo...](https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/nea-
news-29-2-load-following-e.pdf)

------
egdod
Lithium batteries seem like a weird choice for large-scale power storage that
just sits in one place. Lead is a lot cheaper, and its heaviness doesn’t
matter in that application.

~~~
Retric
Lead batteries have a shorter lifespan and require more maintenance. The
additional weight and volume also increases shipping costs.

Oddly enough, you can get a lithium ion car battery jump starter for less than
the cost of a car battery.

~~~
worik
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery)

~~~
Retric
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale)

The amount of effort spent reducing Lithium Ion costs has resulted in dramatic
price reductions. Technologies that looked extremely promising just 10 years
ago are having a hard time keeping up.

------
Darkphibre
>All Megapacks connect to Powerhub, an advanced monitoring and control
platform for large-scale utility projects and microgrids, and can also
integrate with Autobidder, Tesla’s machine-learning platform for automated
energy trading.

Oh. My. God.

pow(What_could_go_wrong, 2);

~~~
kccqzy
It's just trading. Maybe the ML makes some mistakes and someone loses some
money while someone else gets some free or negatively priced electricity.

~~~
Darkphibre
Hmm, valid point. I hadn't thought of the risk factors on the downside.

That just leaves the common attack-vector concern for any grid adding this
into their ecosystem.

------
amirhirsch
4 meter radius bore, go 2km down, then bore a 10 km tunnel. fill it with water
to generate power, pump water out to store power losing 20% roundtrip.

(pi * ((4 meters)^2) * (10 km)) * (1 (kg / liter)) * (9.81 (m / (s^2))) * (2
km) = 2.73946879 gigawatt hours

~~~
osamagirl69
Another thing to consider with the 'dig a hole' based pumped storage approach
is that you can only 'suck' water about 15ft vertically (well technically you
can't really suck water any appreciable distance, but the atmosphere can push
it up about 15ft) so it means that your pumps need to be at the bottom of the
hole.

You might be able to get away with some sort of remote actuated pump head like
that used in an oil well (energy for pumping provided by a reciprocating metal
rod) but the efficiency of such schemes is never going to get anywhere near
the 80% you were targeting. Better hope that the pumps don't fail while the
hole is full!

~~~
amirhirsch
Yea, I’ve been thinking about the requirement that the pump is in the bottom
is probably the Achilles heel. I’m more keen on dropping heavy blocks of metal
now :)

------
lettergram
They make the claim the giant lithium battery grid is “cleaner” than the
“dirty” natural gas “peak power” plants.

I’m curious, what’s the environmental damage of this overall? These battery
packs likely degrade, lithium has to be mined, etc. Natural gas also has a
cost to mine, to burn (though if I recall, the off gases are co2 and water
vapor, lower levels of NO2, etc)

Looking from the outside it looks like both options honestly may pollute or
have the same environmental impact long-term. One is just a cost we don’t see
immediately (or is don’t me in another country)

~~~
the8472
> Looking from the outside it looks like both options honestly may pollute or
> have the same environmental impact long-term.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion. Lithium is not a _fuel_ that is
consumed in the process. It is a recyclable component. And there is no
dangerous imbalance in the global lithium cycle. Which can't be said about the
carbon cycle.

Just because every technology entails some environmental impact does not not
mean all impacts are the same.

~~~
fuzz4lyfe
>It is a recyclable component.

In theory, batteries are not currently recycled in any scale equivalent to
these proposals. Plastic is also recyclable but most of it ends up in
landfills due to it being uneconomical.

~~~
the8472
Time will tell. Right now no industrial-scale deployments have reached EoL, so
it's not surprising that there's little recycling. Plus those things also
contain cobalt, which is significantly more expensive, plastic doesn't have
that incentive.

~~~
dharma1
No cobalt in the new dry battery tech they got from the Maxwell acquisition.

I hope Tesla has a plan for recycling the batteries they manufacture

~~~
toomuchtodo
Tesla is already recycling batteries at Gigafactory 1.

[https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1122631_tesla-
launches-...](https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1122631_tesla-launches-
battery-recycling-at-nevada-gigafactory)

------
Animats
_...Autobidder, Tesla’s machine-learning platform for automated energy
trading. Tesla customers have already used Autobidder to dispatch more than
100 GWh of energy in global electricity markets. "_

Tesla is in Enron's business?

~~~
johnvanommen
I used to work for a company in California that does this. I'm not sure how
commonplace this is, worldwide, but there are definitely companies trading
energy.

[https://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt-
electric/californi...](https://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt-
electric/california.asp)

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) operates a competitive
wholesale electricity market and manages the reliability of its transmission
grid. CAISO provides open access to the transmission and performs long-term
planning. In managing the grid, CAISO centrally dispatches generation and
coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in California and a portion
of Nevada. CAISOs markets include energy (day-ahead and real-time), ancillary
services, and congestion revenue rights. CAISO also operates an Energy
Imbalance Market (EIM), which currently includes CAISO and other balancing
authority areas in the western United States.

CAISO was founded in 1998 and became a fully functioning ISO in 2008. The
Energy Imbalance Market launched in 2014 with PacifiCorp as the first member
or EIM Entity. The EIM serves parts of Arizona, Oregon, Nevada, Washington,
California, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho.

~~~
samstave
Wasnt the whole business model of Enron was to trade energy, and price fix to
their advantage?

I recall in january or feb of 2001 - right when Enron was at their peak
douchebag-ness... I lived in San Jose ca - and my energy bill jumped to $900!

------
CaliforniaKarl
I know it should be obvious, but when I read 'Utility Scale Storage', I was
thinking "Oooooooo, have they come up with an improvement to Lustre file
stores? Or were they rolling their own?" Of course they're talking about
energy storage :-)

