
Tesla brings online its 80 MWh Powerpack station with SoCal Edison - vermontdevil
https://electrek.co/2017/01/23/tesla-mira-loma-powerpack-station-southern-california-edison/
======
philipkglass
_After announcing the project back in September, we have now learned that
Tesla and Southern California Edison (SCE) have completed the massive 80 MWh
energy storage station using Tesla’s new Powerpack 2 at the Mira Loma
substation._

...

 _While Tesla and SCE haven’t officially launched the new substation yet,
sources familiar with the new Powerpack installation told Electrek that it was
completed a few weeks back – late December – and brought online so that the
electric utility can start using it to manage peak demand._

Deploying this project in only 3 months is really impressive.

I think there's a pattern here: energy systems built from repeating small
modules have _systematically lower_ risks of cost/schedule escalation.

See for example "Construction Cost Overruns and Electricity Infrastructure: An
Unavoidable Risk?"

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262304928_Construct...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262304928_Construction_Cost_Overruns_and_Electricity_Infrastructure_An_Unavoidable_Risk)

Look at Figures 2 and 3 in particular. The mean overrun by project type goes
solar < wind < thermal (fossil) < nuclear < hydroelectric. That's basically
the same ordering as "minimum viable project size." Coincidence? I don't think
so. A small solar project can be a handful of panels. If you want to scale up
to hundreds of megawatts, just tile a much larger area using the same panels
and basic repeating structures. A lot of work can execute in parallel and
sections can start generating output/revenue rapidly as they're completed,
sometimes _years_ before the project's last panel is installed. No such luck
with a nuclear or hydro project: you can be on year 7 of an 8 year schedule
and it's still generating zero watts because _so little_ can happen in
parallel. (This is also why I consider small modular reactors the last, best
hope for a nuclear renaissance, but the latency for nuclear R&D is so high
that renewables might "eat the world" first.)

I rather expect that this Tesla installation, despite its impressive speed,
was not particularly cheap. But if battery costs keep declining, in 5 years it
could still be lightning quick to build another installation like this _and_
cheaper than gas/diesel peakers. If that happens then storage-backed
renewables become the very cheapest electricity source across large swaths of
the Earth, threatening huge chunks of coal and natural gas demand. There may
be a parallel risk to oil demand if Tesla and other auto makers execute well
on their EV plans currently in the pipeline. I think Tesla faces some
significant risks from the SolarCity acquisition, and execution risks on the
Model 3, but I sure can't fault the ambition.

~~~
tedsanders
Terrific comment, as usual. This is the key insight everyone. It's not about
where the puck is today (of course this project is small and expensive
relative to mature tech), it's about where the puck could be in 5-50 years.
_If_ battery costs continue to fall with economies of scale, and they become
the least-cost solution, they would be bring characteristics that today's
least-cost solutions lack. Batteries are modular, dense, and can be deployed
extremely quickly. You don't need a years-long permitting and construction
process to deploy them. If they continue following the cost curve they're on,
they may change how grid planning is done, and even change the grid's very
topology.

In the Christensen sense, batteries may be truly disruptive - a new technology
that is initially inappropriate but brings with it undervalued characteristics
(like deployment speed/modularity) that eventually can change how business is
done.

~~~
ams6110
> You don't need a years-long permitting and construction process to deploy
> them.

Not sure where you live but this definitely is not the case in all areas. In
my town the local utility has been trying to get approval to build a
substation (standard design by any criteria, and needed to support increased
demand) for going on two years but nobody wants it near their neighborhood.

------
foota
I'm going to compare this plant to the largest pumped storage plant
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station)).

It has a listed cost of 1.6 billion USD built in 1977-1985, a capacity of
70,000,000 cubic meters of water (the sum of the lower and upper reservoirs on
the wikipedia page) which at the max flow rate of 51,000 cubic meters per
second is ~24 hours of generation at capacity. The page lists the generation
capacity as 3000MW and so you can calculate a storage capacity of 72,000 MWH.

These numbers give $533,333/MW of generation capacity and $22,222/MWH of
storage.

The article seems to show the cost for the Tesla station at $38 million. This
gives $475,000/MWH of storage capacity and $1,900,000/MW generation capacity.

~~~
arijun
While those are interesting comparisons, keep in mind pumped storage has other
negatives that make it less appropriate for some needs (besides the fact that
pumped storage has a larger ecological impact).

Batteries can be installed much faster: it's been 4 months since the
announcement of Tesla's selection making it ~ 24 times faster to implement
than that pumped storage station.

Because they don't have to rely on natural features and since they're smaller
so they can be scattered more, they can be placed nearer to the population
they serve or their power sources.

~~~
igravious
> ~24 times faster to implement

But these two generators don't deliver the equivalent power, 72,000 MWH versus
80 MWH so 900 times difference. Are we going to say that to generate the
equivalent power the battery plant would need to be 900 times bigger and
therefore take up to 900 times longer to build? 900 x 4 months = 3,600 months
= 300 years.

> they're smaller

Again, these two generators don't deliver the equivalent power, 72,000 MWH
versus 80 MWH so 900 times difference. Are we going to say that to generate
the equivalent power the battery plant would need to be 900 times bigger or
that we'd need 900 of them, each with their own facilities and connectors and
security placed near the population they serve?

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beachstartup
well, well. edison and tesla, finally working together again.

------
RangerScience
I can't help but wonder (in the sense of curiosity, and in the sense of
optimism) of the impacts of Tesla's battery _and battery manufacturing
technology_ , particularly in the wake of Samsung's recent battery quality
issues. AFAIK, US manufacturing is known for higher costs - and higher
quality.

Between all the new* uses for batteries, and the Gigafactory....

I wasn't enough of a webdev back then to being paying attention, but, does
this feel like Amazon's AWS early days?

* Off-peak storage for on-peak discharge isn't exactly new, but why hasn't it been as big a thing? Is it just the sexiness of Tesla causing it to make the news, finally?

~~~
rocqua
> Off-peak storage for on-peak discharge isn't exactly new, but why hasn't it
> been as big a thing? > Is it just the sexiness of Tesla causing it to make
> the news, finally?

I'd guess simple costs. Tesla is actually pushing $ / MWh the hardest. They
aren't high cost and high quality, they are low cost high quality. At least,
that's what I gather from reading Musk's biography.

------
guelo
I don't know why this article keeps using the word 'massive'. 20MW is tiny at
utility scale. For comparison the typical pumped-storage station has
1,000-3,000MW capacity.

~~~
pokemon-trainer
80 MWh is massive for a battery. MW are a measure of power, not energy. You
mean MW-h. It's incorrect to say something has a MW capacity when discussing
energy storage.

~~~
deathanatos
> _MW are a measure of power, not energy. You mean MW-h. It 's incorrect to
> say something has a MW capacity when discussing energy storage._

He's quoting TFA,

> _With a capacity of 20 MW /80 MWh_

It would seem sensible that the system has both metrics: a total capacity of
storage, and a total rate at which it can supply that storage to things
connected to it.

Further, my understanding is that the parent you're responding to is correct:
pumped-storage hydro tends to have much greater generation rates; Wikipedia
lists an example of 360MW.

------
roflchoppa
Does anyone know what is the cycle limit on these Powerpack station cells?

~~~
owenversteeg
I've got a good idea what the cycle limit is at normal discharge rates for
these batteries, but the tricky thing in the calculation here is that the
discharge rate is around 0.6C. That's very low (batteries of a similar size
can put out fifty times that comfortably.)

Discharge rate affects the usable cycles. So with an 80% cutoff 10C discharge
you might get 300 cycles, but with a 1C discharge you might get 500 and a 0.5C
discharge you might get 600. Given the very low discharge rate, I'm guessing
these will be ran for around 500 to 1000 cycles, but that's just a rough
estimate and the real number could lie anywhere between 300 and 3000.
Temperature, pressure, charge rate, etc. all affect this.

~~~
hollerith
"the discharge rate is around 0.6C"

I looked up this "C rating". 0.6C means that the battery will be completely
discharged in 1/0.6 hours.

Well, more precisely, it means that it is producing 0.6 * X amps where X is
the battery's capacity in amp- _hours_. Since discharging a battery at a rate
of 0.6 * X amps usually produces less heat than discharging it at X amps, the
battery is (usually) slightly more efficient, which means it will usually
continue to provide power for slightly more than 0.6 hours.

Hopefully, the person I am replying to will correct me if I have made an error
here.

~~~
owenversteeg
Yep, all good except I think you meant to say "1/0.6 hours" in that second-to-
last sentence. Another thing worth keeping in mind is that discharging (most)
Li-ion batteries below a certain voltage is harmful, and thus you can only
usually "get" 80% or so of the energy out of the battery.

In simple terms, C rating is how fast you're draining the battery. Most
batteries are rated for between 1 and 10C. This is the runtime you'll usually
get from C ratings: 0.1C/10.5hr; 0.2C/5hr; 0.3C/3hr; 1C/55min; 1.5C/35min;
2C/25min. You'll notice how this doesn't track the expected values perfectly;
for example, at 0.1C you get 5% more runtime but at 2C you get almost 20%
less. This is because at 0.1C heat is negligible, but at 2C you're discharging
almost 30 watts per cell. A good rule of thumb when running over 0.2C is to
subtract five minutes from however long the cell "should" be able to run. You
can probably now see how discharging at over 10C is tricky.

Discharging at a lower current produces less heat and increases the cycle
lifetime, as well as a few other things (e.x. decreasing the risk of
explosion.) Since Tesla is discharging these at 0.6C, they will get more
cycles out of them than if they discharged them at 1C or 10C, for example.

The number of cycles is very important here because these will be used at
least one cycle per day, and given that most batteries have a lifetime of
200-500 cycles this is a maximum of 200-500 days. Given that there are 16-20
million dollars worth of batteries here, that represents a significant yearly
cost.

~~~
greglindahl
How do you know about Tesla's cell cooling system, and how do you know how
much the utility is planning on using the battery? Or do these two things not
matter?

------
fcanesin
Tesla is so hyped that 20MW/80MWh is bombastic news (by the wording in the
article), a mean sized power plant is ~800MW. The grid is not interconnected ?
Can't they pump up a hydroheletric reservoir ?

I sure hope the new administration open the eyes for carbon sequestration and
nuclear energy, US will be better and cleaner faster.

~~~
adventured
We're going to at least see a nuclear push under the Trump Administration.
They've touted that on numerous occasions. [1] The carbon sequestration I
suspect is entirely off the table.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-09/trump-
s-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-09/trump-s-team-is-
asking-for-ways-u-s-can-keep-nuclear-alive)

