
New Tesla battery could power your home, and maybe the electric grid too - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/12/this-new-tesla-battery-will-power-your-home-and-maybe-the-electric-grid-too/
======
startupfounder
I have been speaking with Solar City's commercial division about doing large
grid-tied solar projects with Tesla batteries in one of USA largest cities and
have $100M in projects under development.

These batteries aren't going to power your home at night, nor should they as
electricity rates at night are dirt cheap (comparatively) when people aren't
at work, in factories and in bed sleeping.

These batteries are going to be performing grid marketplace arbitrage and some
governments and utilities are providing amazing incentives to do so.
(Currently the incentives require the batteries to be tied to solar.)

There are two pieces of your electricity bill (I'm simplifying here) 1) the
electricity charge (EC) and 2) the transmission charge (TC). The EC is
calculated by how many kWh you use during each (peak/off-peak) period of the
day and the TC is calculated by your max grid demand during your largest 15
minutes for the month.

Tesla Batteries are not just about the batteries, the system calculates how to
remove kWh demand from peak hours by pulling power from batteries and then
recharging during off-peak hours. This covers the EC cost reduction.

To reduce TC costs the system calculates your peak load over the given month
and tries to turn it from a "mountain range" (with many peaks) to a "platou".
You pay your TC for the tallest mountain for the month. At first the system
doesn't know that much about your usage profile and will just focus on the
largest peak demand 15 minute intervals. Then over time it will learn more
about your usage patterns and slowly platou your grid demand.

At the end of the day it is going to be much more cost effective and efficient
to have a distributed grid with thousands of solar arrays and batteries than
build out large billion dollar gas fired turbines or even wind turbines.

~~~
the_ancient
>> should they as electricity rates at night are dirt cheap

I dont know where you are but my electric rate is the same night or not... I
pay the exact same rate 24/7

I do not have demand based pricing which is reserved for business customers or
persons consuming a crap load more power than I.

>>At the end of the day

the Power Companies are doing their level best to penalize home use Solar,
they want to charge home owners through the nose if they "sell" power back to
the grid eliminating any costs savings and in come cases making a roof top
solar project more expensive than just buy power from the mafia err power
companies.

Distributed non-grid power should be the goal, Grid power needs to be phased
out.

~~~
lotsofmangos
A lot of UK homes have storage heaters that are powered at a cheaper rate at
night on an off-peak circuit.

~~~
laurencerowe
I never got the point of storage heaters. They're completely useless in the
evening when you want heating. Much of the heat escapes when they're on
overnight (while in bed so little need for it) and the rest during the day
while you're at work.

~~~
Johnythree
The secret is good insulation and thermal design.

If the house temperature doesn't fluctuate wildly day to night, your scenario
doesn't apply.

Plus you need a lot less heating.

------
rootbear
I like the idea of having solar cells that charge up a bank of batteries that
could power my house at night. I was recently talking to a Solar City rep and
they are thinking along those lines.

I wonder if this would be a good time to define a standard low voltage plug
for house hold use. An awful lot of modern electrical devices don't need
110VAC and end up wasting a lot of power converting AC to DC. I've seen
replacements for wall sockets that combine a single AC socket with a few USB
power ports. That's convenient, but USB wasn't designed as a power plug, it's
just been co-opted for it. A well designed system of 24VDC or 48VDC would be a
nice thing to have. Bonus points if it's a world standard. I'd also like a
pony.

~~~
emcrazyone
Curious... I live in suburbia where putting solar panels on one's domicile
would most likely be met with an order to remove or fines.

I had an experimental panel in my backyard to provide power to a work shop
shed. The shed was there when I purchased the property & house. About 6 months
after planting a pole in the ground, behind the shed, but in view to my
neighbors garnered a letter from the township where I live that basically said
to remove it for being an eye sore.

Has anyone else ran into this problem?

~~~
bdcs
>Has anyone else ran into this problem?

So many people did that this very practice is now banned in the state of
California.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Florida as well. Their state law specifically prohibits HOAs from disallowing
solar panel installation.

------
dangrossman
There are already widespread programs where utilities pay customers a rebate
in exchange for remotely turning off their A/C compressors at the peak of a
heat wave in order to chop the top off consumption spikes. Paying high-
consumption commercial customers to turn off entirely for a few hours to avoid
spinning up another generation plant happens too.

It's not too far-fetched to imagine a rebate program on home battery systems
if the utility got the same remote control power to disconnect homes from the
grid when needed, or even have their batteries dump power back onto it at
those times. Essentially, individual homes become part of "smart grid"
management systems.

~~~
joezydeco
Beyond that, you can opt into paying a real-time price for electricity (like
the utility does) instead of a flat rate. You're at the mercy of the market
but can save a significant amount if you voluntarily turn off high consumption
devices during peak periods and schedule other loads for overnight or slack
periods.

What really gets interesting are the times (especially during early summer
mornings) where there's too much supply on the grid and the price drops into
negative territory (i.e. they'll pay you to shed load off the network). _That
's_ when you need the storage system charging up as fast as it can. I've been
working on a personal system that watches the price and other factors (weather
forecasts, family schedule) and cycles the A/C as deep as possible during
those times.

What might really suck though is if everyone has one of these in their homes,
then the price advantage will go away. Not a _bad_ problem to have, but it
means we'll have to shift our supply to other places like personal solar
panels (hmm, does Musk sell those?)

~~~
mrfusion
Could you mine bitcoins during those negative times?

~~~
joezydeco
Theoretically? Sure. Practically, when compared to underground Chinese mines
full of equipment? No.

The negative price situation only happens maybe 0.5% of the year. Your
expensive equipment will sit idle the rest of the time.

------
joshstrange
Whenever Solar/Battery power comes up I like to link back to this [0]. There
was a HN discussion about it [1] when the article in question [3] referenced
that PDF.

My favorite quote is probably:

> To put this into perspective, who would have believed 10 years ago that
> traditional wire line telephone customers could economically “cut the cord?”

[0] Disruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a
Changing Retail Electric Business
([http://www.eei.org/ourissues/finance/Documents/disruptivecha...](http://www.eei.org/ourissues/finance/Documents/disruptivechallenges.pdf))

[1] Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
([http://grist.org/article/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-
util...](http://grist.org/article/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-utilities-
according-to-u-s-utilities/))

[2] HN Discussion 261 points, 670 days ago, 139 comments
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5543603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5543603))

~~~
DINKDINK
Solar panels would only affect the revenue of coupled utilities. Depending on
the regulatory framework of the state, Decoupled utilities [0] would be
unaffected by solar (and may even benefit if they supply the capital
investment to install the solar)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_%28utility_regulati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_%28utility_regulation%29)

------
gorillapower
This would be great for the situation were having in South Africa; were
experiencing daily loadshedding at the moment as our only power utility
basically, cannot meet demand.

The situation is set to continue for at least a year while the new coal power
plant "Medupi" is being constructed - its more than 4 years behind schedule.

A battery that could be charged and then used to power your home during
loadshedding could be a breakthrough solution as the costs for generators and
solar are quite expensive. That being said not sure how much the Telsa "Home
Battery" would be.

Any event, if its feasible it could really be a good solution. Im sure in the
long run countries experiencing similar a situation could use this.

~~~
malandrew
Brazil likely would also benefit. Our electricity production and grid are
precarious at times and there are occasional rolling blackouts when things are
mismanaged. A distributed great would help there.

~~~
malandrew
s/great/grid/

------
olla
The real blocker of going electric on everything is the capacity of
rechargeable technologies and their lifetime, not some global conspiracy. Even
the high price of batteries/capacitors might not be a problem if lifetime and
capacity would be great. In that sense Musk might be onto something, but I
think it takes a lot more than 20% improvement over current technologies for
batteries to become feasible for storing electricity on large scale. If a
smartphone could be done with a battery, that lasts a week and is not dead
within a year in winter conditions, it probably would have been done allready.

~~~
higherpurpose
A smartphone with a week of battery life is likely to be possible now. Just do
this:

1) use the latest most efficient panel technology - let's say the latest Super
AMOLED from Samsung

2) Use a very lower resolution such as 480x320 (also the initial resolution of
the iPhone, which many thought looked "great" a few years ago)

3) Put a screen that's as small as possible on it - let's say 3.5" (you
now...the "ideal" size that the iPhone used to have?)

4) Put the lowest power chip you can find in it (even if that means lowest
performance - although a single-core 1 Ghz Cortex A7 should do the trick).

5) Put a relatively powerful (enough to handle that resolution easily), but
very efficient GPU in it

6) Use other components that are also cutting edge in terms of power
efficiency.

7) Put a 3,000-3,500mAh battery in it, even if it makes the phone 10-12mm
thick (so like the Nokia Lumia 900 that many liked at the time for its
"design", despite its thickness).

I would be surprised if all of this didn't lead to a week of battery life for
the phone. The "problem" is this phone will be quite expensive unlocked
(probably close to $300) due to its cutting edge/more efficient components,
yet at the same time it will look like a $100 cheap phone in terms of "specs".

So where I'm going with this is that the _market_ doesn't want such a phone
even if it has a "1 week battery life". The market wants "PC-like
performance", 2k resolutions and 5.5" screens more than they want "1 week
battery life". And the other problem is that they want those specs to keep
going _up_ , and as long as those go up, battery life can't go up much either.

They optimize for performance and high specs rather than battery life. So if
an OEM can choose between a 1080p panel with 30 percent less power consumption
and a 2k panel with the _same_ power consumption, they go for the 2k. And
that's how our phones get stuck forever in the ~1 day battery life.

~~~
Symmetry
You're forgetting the power draw of the radio. To actually last a week on
3,000mAh you'd probably be stuck with EDGE at best.

------
themgt
_The financial implications of these threats are fairly evident. Start with
the increased cost of supporting a network capable of managing and integrating
distributed generation sources. Next, under most rate structures, add the
decline in revenues attributed to revenues lost from sales foregone. These
forces lead to increased revenues required from remaining customers … and
sought through rate increases. The result of higher electricity prices and
competitive threats will encourage a higher rate of DER additions, or will
promote greater use of efficiency or demand-side solutions.

Increased uncertainty and risk will not be welcomed by investors, who will
seek a higher return on investment and force defensive-minded investors to
reduce exposure to the sector. These competitive and financial risks would
likely erode credit quality. The decline in credit quality will lead to a
higher cost of capital, putting further pressure on customer rates.
Ultimately, capital availability will be reduced, and this will affect future
investment plans. The cycle of decline has been previously witnessed in
technology-disrupted sectors (such as telecommunications) and other
deregulated industries (airlines)._

[http://grist.org/climate-energy/solar-panels-could-
destroy-u...](http://grist.org/climate-energy/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-
utilities-according-to-u-s-utilities/)

~~~
xxxyy
I guess we should feel sorry for Comcast as well. Damn this Silicon Valley,
always innovating, breaking things down.

------
eldavido
Related economist article:

[http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21587782-europes-
elec...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21587782-europes-electricity-
providers-face-existential-threat-how-lose-half-trillion-euros)

Who's building the "I have a 10kW load, I'm in zip code XXXXX, when is the
cheapest/best time to turn this on" API?

------
mrfusion
But if the Tesla car battery can only handle 1000 charge/discharge cycles, how
is a home battery viable? Wouldn't it only last for three years or so?

(Maybe I'm wrong about the number of cycles?)

~~~
michaelt
Some companies have battery technology they believe is good for 10,000 [1] or
even 16,000 [2] cycles until it reaches 80% of its initial capacity.

On the other hand, some batteries on the market show substantial capacity loss
after just 300 cycles [3].

Needless to say, the product that lasts 50 times longer costs quite a bit more
- and they're bigger and heavier to boot. For stationary power storage, you
don't care if they're big and heavy, but for transport applications you do.

[1]
[https://www.toshiba.com/tic/datafiles/Battery_Energy_Storage...](https://www.toshiba.com/tic/datafiles/Battery_Energy_Storage_Solutions_with_SCiB.pdf)
[2] [http://www.altairnano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/60Ah-
Da...](http://www.altairnano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/60Ah-
DataSheet.pdf) [3] [http://industrial.panasonic.com/www-
data/pdf2/ACA4000/ACA400...](http://industrial.panasonic.com/www-
data/pdf2/ACA4000/ACA4000CE240.pdf)

~~~
mrfusion
So you think they'll build these to have more cycles?

~~~
michaelt
I think they'll build them so they make economic sense to customers. I think
that would probably mean having more than 1000 cycles, but it could mean being
really cheap, or some sort of lease/periodic replacement deal, or something
like that.

~~~
danielweber
If you magically made the Tesla S battery last 1000 cycles, it could make $12
per cycle, grossing you $12,000 over its life.

The replacement cost of a Tesla S battery is $30,000.

------
afarrell
I suspect this market will be captured by folks not in homes, but in
neighborhoods buying things like Sadoway's liquid metal batteries* and either
participating in the bulk electricity market directly (fun fact: the markets
run by New England ISO and NYISO are run as linear programming problems to
minimize total cost over a bunch of supply curves bid in by suppliers and
nuclear plants usually bid negative cost to make sure they get scheduled) or
providing reliability-boosting service to utilities.

* [http://www.ambri.com/technology/](http://www.ambri.com/technology/)

------
patcon
Seems odd to talk about "stationary batteries" as a separate product, as if a
car weren't stationary most of its life. (but I suppose that changes in a
future of sharing economies and self-driving cars)

~~~
dangrossman
The cars are mostly stationary, but they're stationary in the wrong place
during peak consumption hours: a workplace parking lot, not a garage connected
to the grid.

------
snarfy
I love it. The elephant in the room with electric cars has always been the
power grid. It is simply not capable of sustaining the energy equal to the
amount of gasoline distributed to gas stations. The last rough measure I've
seen was the grid is about 1/4 what it needs to be to sustain electric cars.

Having batteries as energy cache spread out around the network is a great idea
and will offset the need to build out more power lines.

~~~
lotsofcows
I think you're complicating things. You don't need the car and the battery.
Enough cars can act as a distributed power cache.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed. Power use problems with electric cars are somewhat self-solving.

------
Brakenshire
For anyone interested in this issue, I recommend the two reports from Citi and
UBS described in these articles:

[http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/citigroup-solar-battery-
stor...](http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/citigroup-solar-battery-storage-
socket-parity-in-years-57151)

[http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/ubs-time-to-join-the-
solar-e...](http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/ubs-time-to-join-the-solar-ev-
storage-revolution-27742)

It all really comes down to battery cost. If Tesla's gigafactory does what it
says it will do, in seriously reducing cost per kwh, then a huge home storage
market will open up naturally.

The projections do seem a bit heroic, though. People seem to have been
predicting cost reductions in batteries for the last 15 years, but they don't
seem to have come to fruition.

------
malandrew
This makes the name of his company interesting homage to Nicola. Nicola
competed with Edison and Edison eventually won out.

While Musk's plans aren't the same as Tesla's, the idea that an important part
of the new structure of the modern electric grid bears his name is great.

~~~
pm90
How did Edison win out? Our electric grids are AC, right?

~~~
mikeash
Edison won in business, becoming rich and famous, rather than dying poor and
alone like Tesla did.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Tesla made many people rich however. And was wealthy himself from time to
time. He spent it all on more basic research and development. A true citizen
of the world.

------
EVdotIO
Please correct me if I am wrong in any of this, as I have a rudimentary
knowledge of battery/capacitor/flywheel/Cox's timepiece tech at best. Li-ion
make sense for supplying power for things which need Ah/kg high, but if you
are not limited by mass, wouldn't maximizing aH/$ be the driving factor? Tesla
has been making a massive push into li-ion fabrication and, as far as I can
tell, not pursuing other energy storage mediums. Totally speculating here, but
I would imagine a fly wheel, or even banks of lead-acid batteries, way out
performing li-ion on total lifetime costs to the energy stored and discharged.

------
sixdimensional
The original inventors of such technology are AC Propulsion [1]
(coincidentally, the same company that Tesla licensed the early drivetrain for
the roadster from). They referred to it as "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G) technology.
Some interesting history in this idea - it's taken somebody like Elon Musk and
a company like Tesla to start looking at implementing this technology in
production/commodity markets.

[1]
[https://www.acpropulsion.com/products-v2g.html](https://www.acpropulsion.com/products-v2g.html)

------
nsxwolf
This potentially sounds like a good alternative to a diesel generator.

~~~
chiph
Only for short periods of time. If you live in an area subject to natural
disasters, you'd still want a generator (either diesel, propane, or natural
gas) to get you enough power during extended outages to run a refrigerator, a
TV, a few lights, and charge a phone or laptop. I was without power during
Hurricane Hugo for almost 10 days. Cold showers suck, but what sucked more was
not getting any news.

~~~
ericd
You can get a hand crank emergency radio/light/phone charger for roughly
$25-$30. Example: [http://www.amazon.com/Epica-Emergency-Digital-Flashlight-
Cer...](http://www.amazon.com/Epica-Emergency-Digital-Flashlight-
Certified/dp/B00CZDT30S/)

The refrigerator bit is a bit harder...

~~~
timtadh
It is the furnace blower fan that is the essential thing to power. (assuming a
natural gas/propane furnace) With that you can heat your house. If you can
heat your house you can have running water. Without heat you will need to shut
off the water and drain the pipes so they do not burst. At that point you have
no heat and no water and you probably need to just leave.

------
mrfusion
I wonder if they should also market this to the whole house backup generator
market? Those run 2,000-4,000 $ at least, I think.

I'd imagine a lot of houses would pay $1500 for a battery to operate their
whole house during an outage.

Another product I'd like to see is a plug in battery to operate the sump pump
for a few hours during an outage? Apparently a UPS can't handle the high load,
and the battery backup ones you make require an expensive plumbing visit to
install the special DC powered pump.

~~~
JshWright
How long will that $1,500 battery power my house? It's still not possible to
beat hydrocarbons in terms of energy density, and if you are looking to
weather a multi-day outage, it's energy density you care about...

~~~
danielweber
Using a Tesla S battery as a baseline, it gives you 85KWh at $30,000, or
2.83KWh per $1000.

$1500 would give you 4.25KWh. The average home averages 1KW, so you'll have
4.25 hours.

Obviously you could get more efficiency with a stationary battery.

~~~
33W
Further, when the power goes out you limit your consumption. With a connected
home, running on battery power could widen the acceptable temperature range,
run only one bulb in a multi-bulb array, or even disconnect certain outlets in
a home.

Even cutting to 80%, you get an extra hour. 50%, and you've got 4. I am having
a hard time finding refrigerator specifics, but around 1000KWh annually seems
to be on the high side. This gives you 1.5 days on the 4.25KWh battery.

------
krschultz
This sure looks like pure PR to deflect from the bad earnings announcement
yesterday.

I'm sure they'll build it some day, but call me when you can buy it.

~~~
Shivetya
it cannot help that GM has announced they will built the Chevrolet Bolt, a 200
mile range EV. Combined with other articles this car will start building in
mid to late 2016.

[http://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail...](http://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2015/feb/chicago/0212-bolt-
ev.html)

~~~
samatman
A Bolt and a Volt? Someone flunked high-school Spanish.

~~~
Shorel
What has Spanish to do with this?

~~~
samatman
In Spanish, these are homonyms.

~~~
Shorel
In Spanish, these are 'voltio' and 'rayo'. The words you mention are not
Spanish words.

However, it is true than in Latin American Spanish we do not perceive the
difference between V and B. I guess the Aztecs and Incas did not have that in
their own languages.

In Spain they do.

And in portuguese (the most similar language to Spanish) the difference is
important as well.

~~~
samatman
Y'know I would have said 'tornillo' :P

------
webXL
Cool idea, but I think this is just a fallback plan or hedge for the new
gigafactory. If oil prices stay low, it hurts the demand for electric cars. If
we get driverless cars and more efficient ride sharing, people will be less
inclined to own a car. But I'm sure musk has ideas to directly address those
threats. He just doesn't want a $5b battery plant to be underutilized.

------
Shivetya
I am not all that sure I want it IN my house, and the garage for many homes is
in the house. Yeah I know, people garage their cars but this is wholly
different. Maybe outside the back in a small enclosed space, similar to an AC
unit

I will be curious as to regulations for ventilation, wiring, and similar, are.

~~~
mrfusion
I think operating temperature is important, so I'd imagine outside or garage
is a no go? (My garage gets down to 40F at night, not sure if that's typical).

But maybe with enough insulation you could put it anywhere?

~~~
aquark
Well, depends on location ... I think mine was down around -10F last night and
I don't have room for one in a heated space.

I suspect it will be a while longer before battery technology is as useful
above the 49th parallel.

------
kriro
My main hope for vastly improved batteries (desperately needed) is that it'll
be possible to combine a bunch of them and store the power for a small
community (however it may be generated) thus decentralizing power supply. A
localized grid would have major benefits imo

------
userbinator
From the headline I thought it would be about using your electric car as a
gigantic powerbank for the house.

...which is not such a bad idea (e.g. power outages), until you realise that
you might need that power for driving too.

~~~
dangrossman
I think people under-estimate the capacity of car batteries, or over-estimate
their home power usage. I used about 300 kWh last month, or about 10 kWh per
day. A Model S has an 85 kWh battery. I could run my entire house on it for 4
days and still have 150 miles of driving range.

~~~
danielweber
People are really shocked when I tell them a car in motion uses 10 times the
power of a house.

------
spullara
I have one of these on order. They are in the process of securing the
permission of PG&E to install it.

------
peter303
I read somewhere that solar installations in Japan have about a two-day
battery capacity.

------
deedubaya
Is it possible for there to be any push back on this from electric utility
providers?

~~~
grandpa
Utilities should be happy about this. One of their biggest problems is uneven
load on the grid - low at night, too high during a heatwave - and this has the
potential to make that problem a lot easier.

~~~
msandford
They should be, but they won't be. Because it makes people less dependent upon
them.

If you bought one of these and enough solar panels you could go completely
off-grid. Which the power companies desperately don't want. It's to the point
where they're charging people for being hooked up at all, lest everyone think
about putting in solar and only buying power when the sun isn't shining.

The utilities would be happy about this if they controlled it, but they won't
because the capital expense would be way too high. They'll only be happy about
it if they somehow are the only ones who have control and get to use it for
free. Somehow I doubt that'll happen.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hey, utilities are often run by public-spirited folk with no greedy agenda.
They make decisions that are aimed to balance the needs of the many, which can
appear to be against the wants of the few.

~~~
msandford
You're absolutely right! Some are. But some aren't, and some power companies
are very scared and lashing out. There was an attempt in Arizona to get
monthly connection fees of up to $100/mo if you have solar at all. Hawaii has
blocked people from getting solar hooked up to the grid.

[http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/07/19/solar-energy-
ariz...](http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/07/19/solar-energy-arizona-net-
metering)

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-solar-boom-so-
su...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-solar-boom-so-successfull-
its-been-halted/)

The problem is obvious, of course. At some point the only people left paying
any kind of substantial monthly fees are those who can't afford solar, and
those are likely the poorest. And then what happens is that there's a
regressive tax. I get that you can't have that kind of bad outcome.

But at the same time, grid maintenance is fairly cheap and peak power
generation is very expensive, which is why utilities will pay people to be
able to turn off their A/C at peak times. This is quite literally where solar
shines: the more A/C load there is the more likely you're getting good power
out of solar.

If the utilities need to prevent a regressive tax situation then they need to
change incentives to be more transparent rather than just flailing about. If
peak power is expensive, make it easier for people to put solar up and get
paid for it. If nighttime power is cheap, make it cheaper on the bill.

Power companies are basically complaining that arbitrage is hard. They're the
ones who are in charge of their own business models, though, not me. So if
they fail to adapt to the world as it stands, you'll forgive me for not
feeling sympathy.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
For the most part, 'they' is 'us'. We have to live with the results. My power
company is the REC, and I could run for the board but I don't. Anyway its my
neighbors trying their best to keep the power on for everybody.

You didn't mention issues of connecting to the local grid. There may be issues
adding solar to your house, relative to the transformer and neighborhood
substation. That $100 may be what it cost them to adapt. Likely its a tiny
fraction of the cost of dealing with customers with unusual requirements.

~~~
msandford
> There may be issues adding solar to your house, relative to the transformer
> and neighborhood substation. That $100 may be what it cost them to adapt.

Almost assuredly no. There are laws in place and inspections which get done
that prohibit anyone's inverters from being on when the power is off, this is
to protect workers from getting shocked when a line SHOULD be down, but isn't.
The inspection is simple and it's been done for many years for people who
choose to install backup generators. Obviously those don't feed power back,
but that leads into my next point.

If they can run 100 or 200 amp service to my house, surely they can afford a
few dozen amps of power in the other direction. 100 amps * 220V = 22kW Many
houses are wired for 200 amps so that's 44kW of power. Who is putting in 20kW
to 40kW solar plants on their roof? A normal panel is between 200 and 400
watts. Which houses have 100 solar panels on them?

Further $100/mo times forever isn't reasonable if they only have a fixed
capital cost to adapt. Again, they almost certainly don't unless everyone in
the neighborhood is developing truly commercial amounts of solar and wind
power. And if someone is breaking that threshold, fine I have no problems with
them having to jump through hoops. They can afford it.

> For the most part, 'they' is 'us'.

It GREATLY depends on where you live. In rural areas it's a power co-op or
whatever and I'm inclined to agree with just about everything you've said. But
there are a lot of places where it's not a co-op and it's about someone
turning a profit; for shareholders and everything.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
... and those inspections aren't free.

------
zimbatm
OT: For electric cars to succeed someone really needs to step-up and
standardise the plug. It's ridiculous to have charging stations that are tied
to a particular brand of cars.

~~~
diydsp
SAE J1772 is a North American standard for electrical connectors for electric
vehicles maintained by the Society of Automotive Engineers and has the formal
title "SAE Surface Vehicle Recommended Practice J1772, SAE Electric Vehicle
Conductive Charge Coupler”.[1] It covers the general physical, electrical,
communication protocol, and performance requirements for the electric vehicle
conductive charge system and coupler. The intent is to define a common
electric vehicle conductive charging system architecture including operational
requirements and the functional and dimensional requirements for the vehicle
inlet and mating connector.(1)

The SAE J1772-2009 connector specification has been added to the international
IEC 62196-2 standard (1)

The SAE J1772-2009 was adopted by the car manufacturers of post-2000 electric
vehicles like the third generation of the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf as
the early models. The connector became standard equipment on the US-market due
to the availability of charging stations with that plug type in the nation's
electric vehicle network (with the help of funding such as ChargePoint America
program drawing grants from provisions of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act).(1)

(1)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772)

~~~
zimbatm
Thanks, I just found that Tesla has an adapter for it's cars to connect to SAE
J17772 plugs: [http://my.teslamotors.com/roadster/charging/j1772-mobile-
con...](http://my.teslamotors.com/roadster/charging/j1772-mobile-connector) .
Too bad Tesla didn't standardise on that format so that other cars can benefit
from their chargers.

~~~
SEJeff
Tesla didn't use that standard because it doesn't provide enough charging
power due to being lower voltage.

The Tesla charger is actually better tech:

[https://transportevolved.com/2014/06/16/nissan-bmw-look-
adop...](https://transportevolved.com/2014/06/16/nissan-bmw-look-adopt-teslas-
charging-standard/)

I suspect the standard will go no where as Tesla also owns more charging
stations than anyone else and is expanding them constantly:

[http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger](http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger)

------
andyl
Musk seems to specialize in bringing innovation to slow-moving industries.

Tesla > Cars & Oil/Gas, SpaceX Rockets > Aerospace, SpaceX Satellites >
Telecom, Solar City & Tesla > Utilities

Where is the Musk for Finance and Health Care?

~~~
virtuallynathan
Well, he already had PayPal...

