
Tesla Powerwall: Crunching the Numbers for Australia - qzervaas
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/05/tesla-powerwall-crunching-the-numbers-for-an-australian-suburban-home/
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ljoshua
Interesting to see the different power usage and electricity rates for a
different part of the globe. Here in the Houston, TX area we used 848 kWh in a
30 day winter period for a mid-sized home, which is as much as the article
states the household used in a 95 day period. During the summer, when my old
AC unit is running like crazy, we'll use ~1800 kWh, and our rate is an average
of $0.102 USD, which is around 60% of the top rate from the article.

A Powerwall unit still wouldn't make sense for us, but this is rev 1, and so
in a couple of generations we could be looking at something that actually
could be impactful.

~~~
merb
848 kWh sounds a lot. For a 4 person house in germany you have a yearly usage
~1800kWh. You have the same amount in a 1/3 year. That's a shitload.

Currently I'm single and use 848 kWh for a whole year.

~~~
noselasd
That sounds so little. Just having two 50W lightbulbs shining 24x7 would be
slightly more than that in a year.

~~~
merb
Currently I'm below average something like 200kWh below.

However currently I'm only at home on Sundays, all other days I'm only be here
to sleep and eat, however I barely cook, so a toaster and breed doesn't use so
much energy and I have LED's everywhere so I use max. 7W per room (2 rooms
total + 1 bath) however I turn off the light's after leaving a room. I have no
dishwasher and my watching machine is really really good when it comes to
energy. I barely watch TV and I use my MacBook for surfing which gets loaded
at my company (I use it there, too). So I only need a light with 7W for like 4
Hours, have a router running 24/7 which consumes nearly nothing. I'm a single.
So no problem there. (Btw. my invoice for food is definitely higher than most
;))

oh and btw. in germany energy isn't as cheap as in the usa. also if you use
solar energy in germany you could only use 30% since the rest goes to the
public (and you get nearly nothing for that).

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yitchelle
Kinda sad situation with the alternative energy source.

I did a similar back of the envelope calculation for my dad when he considered
putting solar panels onto his house roof when the Australian Govn't was
subsidizing it. It would have taken him 17 years to breakeven from the initial
installation. This did not even consider the maintenance and insurance cost.
We weren't even sure if my parents would have stayed in that house for that
long. So we skipped it.

The initial costs is just too high for average Joe.

~~~
mhurron
> Kinda sad situation with the alternative energy source.

I find it kind of sad that the only way people will consider alternative
energy sources is if it's significantly cheaper than the existing, embedded,
kill the planet options.

I find it sad, but I'm not surprised. People in general don't actually give a
shit about anything around them.

~~~
escherize
You should cheer up. Rational people (like gp) only care about what's around
them. Why should he waste money on solar instead of sending it to charity,
etc?

~~~
Brakenshire
The Rational Man is a economic construct which is dubious as an abstract
concept for building economic models, and irrelevant as a justification for
individual behaviour. If the limit of morality is the law and the market, we
might all just as well give up now.

~~~
oldmanjay
Apologies for this comment. I dashed off about 30% of my thoughts (the
shittiest 30%) and this isn't really what I was trying to express. I'll leave
it here to remind myself to think more. \-----

If the most convincing case you can make for your morals is "you should
because I say so" then you can't be too surprised when it's not 100%
convincing to people.

~~~
Brakenshire
> If the most convincing case you can make for your morals is "you should
> because I say so" then you can't be too surprised when it's not 100%
> convincing to people.

Yeah, there are all sorts of questions you can discuss about how your values
inform the way you spend money above and beyond what's necessary, whether it's
about luxury, convenience, status, or how you would want to spend charitable
money.

What annoyed me was the raising up of an observation ('people don't care about
anything beyond their surroundings') into something which is glibly justified
because it is Rational. I would say that's a "you should because I say so", or
at best a "you should because it is" argument for morality.

Edit: Ah, I see your edit, consider the above part of the fossilized argument
then!

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grecy
The price for solar is not accurate in this article.

My parents just installed a 5KW system, with an inverter and smart meter in
Warrnambool, Victoria. They paid $10k AUD, then the government refunded them
$5k, so total out of pocket expense for them was only $5k

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oconnore
The whole notion of the powerwall is based on the assumption that either
utilities or consumers are irrational. If buying a powerwall was at all
economical, utilities would buy them in bulk, charge them on wholesale power,
alter their pricing structure, and make a larger margin than you ever could.
If powerwalls aren't economical, the only reason they make sense is to
capitalize on consumers who are willing to buy the thing because its cool, or
because they like living "off the grid".

Utilities also have access to utility-scale energy storage -- pumped hydro,
thermal, etc -- which is far cheaper than consumer focused powerwalls.

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rhino369
Not to mention, if people actually used these in large enough numbers--or
utilities building a battery reserve--the off peak power and peak power
difference will be smaller. Because you have increased demand for off peak due
to charging. And decreased peak usage.

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keithpeter
That smoothing out of the daily demand curve might actually lead to
significant capital savings on the part of utility companies as less need for
short term high power reserve. Also the resilience of the system to problems
would increase. UK is providing a degree of subsidy to reduce peak demand
already. Smart meters may help in future.

[http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-
information/Electri...](http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-
information/Electricity-transmission-operational-data/Data-Explorer/)

[http://www.eunomia.co.uk/eunomia-supports-uks-first-
electric...](http://www.eunomia.co.uk/eunomia-supports-uks-first-electricity-
demand-reduction-auction/)

[http://www.carbonbrief.org/how-national-grid-keeps-the-
light...](http://www.carbonbrief.org/how-national-grid-keeps-the-lights-on-
when-a-large-power-station-catches-fire)

