The Old Empires' plan to cut out Tesla

[oil pan 4]

It opens next year.
I see it has a solar canopy. Why?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Fingie

kinda sad. I hoped we would get a worldwide standard, like the usb connectors on phones.

You mean the way that every single device I have (three phones, two cameras, a music player and an Arduino board - oh, and a tablet) that uses a USB connector has a different, incompatible plug on the device?

[ohmman]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

To buy enough battery capacity to charge let's say help charge 1 vehicle at 350kw would want a 700v system because this is a common inverter voltage. The bank would have to be made up of at least 97 12v batteries rated for 225 amp hours.
That many batteries could supply around 70kw of charging power. So you may want more like 2 or 3 of these banks per vehicle.
Each battery would weigh around 130lb, cost $400 each.
Each battery bank would cost around $40,000, contain around 10,000 pounds of lead and would need to be replaced around every 5 years. Just to charge 1 or 2 cars at 1 location. The battery houses would have to be climate controlled because that much charge and discharge would make a lot of heat.
So it's a bad idea and dumb idea.

I don't know where you're getting these numbers. Do you care to share the source? Are you also assuming peak shavers would be lead acid? Is that where your lead numbers come from?

Tesla already uses battery banks at some Superchargers to peak shave. It's a cost effective solution, and it's not required as an alternative to the grid. It's supplemental. They're lithium-ion NMC packs, of course.

If the grid is firing up peaker plants to generate more energy to meet demand, that energy is, by nature, more expensive. It's also dirty. So using batteries made of mostly recyclable materials is quite arguably not "dumb."

Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by thingstodo

...there is a power bill penalty for loads that go from 0 (no charging) to 350 kw (charging) in a minute or two ... or perhaps occasionally to 3.5 MW (10 chargers at 350 KW in one location).

Don't know about power bills. That depends on whether the power company is able to pass on the cost to the owners of the chargers, or has to spread it out over the whole customer base.

The real problem is the technical one of system stability. Simplistically, everything in a power has to run at the same frequency (60 Hz in the US). The grid has inertia, both in the rotating mass of generators and the electrical equivalent, but this has limits. Suddenly dumping too much of a load at one point of the grid can drag down its frequency, causing it to destabilize and disconnect from the rest of the grid. Worst case, the instability can propagate, bringing down the whole grid.

Seems like a good way to deal with this would be to use flywheel storage, since that has built-in inertia, and doesn't need inverters to go from DC to AC, like batteries or capacitors.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by ohmman

I don't know where you're getting these numbers. Do you care to share the source? Are you also assuming peak shavers would be lead acid? Is that where your lead numbers come from?

Tesla already uses battery banks at some Superchargers to peak shave. It's a cost effective solution, and it's not required as an alternative to the grid. It's supplemental. They're lithium-ion NMC packs, of course.

If the grid is firing up peaker plants to generate more energy to meet demand, that energy is, by nature, more expensive. It's also dirty. So using batteries made of mostly recyclable materials is quite arguably not "dumb."

Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying.

I am the source. I work with high power electronics like this almost every day.
The lead acid specs are from Trojan battery and the inverters i talk about would be using existing inverter technology with industry standard voltages.
They would use lead acid because there is simply not enough lithium to make batteries to do all this. Sure tesla can build a few demo models. But scale it up to global size and build all the electric cars using lithium batteries. I don't think so.

For example when the Toyota prius sales first took off they were building so many NiMH batteries there was a global shortage and Ni prices shot up to record high of $30 per pound.

At least the lead acid batteries get recycled. The lithium batteries are chucked into a land fill when they're no good.

I have actual real world experience with inverters that handle 350kw loads. I work on 500hp electric motors that use pretty close to 350kw.
Where I work we have 9 of 500hp and bigger motors and we have our own 250kv line and our own substation, which cost around 10 million dollars just for the substation. The local farm and dairy cartel spent untold millions of dollars when they bought our 250kv line in 12 miles for us. A smaller sub station could be used for a car charging station but would still cost a few million dollars.
Each 350kw inverter charger should cost under $100,000.
The 500hp inverter drivevariable frequently drives cost around $70,000, a lot of the same stuff would go into both a VFD and battery charger. So we should assume cost would be close to the same.
Each inverter power source would be the size of very large refrigerator and require climate control.

That's why I find the cute little solar roof top charing station a joke. They are not showing the sub substation supplying power the inverters, they are not showing the inverter control room with hvac sitting on top or next to it.
It looks like false or misleading advertising at best.

[botsapper]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

That's why I find the cute little solar roof top charing station a joke. They are not showing the sub substation supplying power the inverters, they are not showing the inverter control room with hvac sitting on top or next to it.
It looks like false or misleading advertising at best.

The top solar-gathering region of the US; the Solar One/Two (20MW) is 95 miles, Mojave Solar Project (nameplate capacity of 280 MW) is 89 miles, Ivanpah Solar Generating System (392 MW) is 47 miles away, Desert Sunlight Solar Farm (550MW) 100 miles, Copper Mountain (150MW) 100 miles, Nellis Solar (14MW) 100 miles and Antelope Valley Solar Ranch (266 MW) 120 miles. Many more around the Southwest.

[ohmman]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

They would use lead acid because there is simply not enough lithium to make batteries to do all this. Sure tesla can build a few demo models. But scale it up to global size and build all the electric cars using lithium batteries. I don't think so.

Lithium is extremely common. It's the third element in the periodic table. The supply chain has to grow and mature, but it's not scarce.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

At least the lead acid batteries get recycled. The lithium batteries are chucked into a land fill when they're no good.

This is also false. Lithium-ion batteries, when depleted beyond their useful capacity, have significant economic value. This 7-year old article details some of the progress that was made at the time. Tesla has since announced a closed-loop battery recycling program that will recover all of the lithium from recycled batteries, along with much of the other valuable metals. I believe the last number achieved was 80%. This also takes pressure off of your first concern, above.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

That's why I find the cute little solar roof top charing station a joke. They are not showing the sub substation supplying power the inverters, they are not showing the inverter control room with hvac sitting on top or next to it.

Here, we can agree to some extent. The solar canopy (Tesla has a few of them here in California) adds really nice shade when you're charging. Other than that, it's of marginal benefit aside from optics. It's not sizable enough to make much of a dent. Of course, they've got grid-tied inverters that are not in an HVAC control room. They're externally mounted next to the stacked chargers.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by ohmman

The solar canopy (Tesla has a few of them here in California) adds really nice shade when you're charging. Other than that, it's of marginal benefit...

OTOH, if you've got a roof in a nice sunny spot, why not put PV on it? Especially when you own a company that installs solar :-)

[ohmman]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

OTOH, if you've got a roof in a nice sunny spot, why not put PV on it? Especially when you own a company that installs solar :-)

Not a bad point. From an energy perspective, I think the energy saved by keeping cars from having to run their AC likely outweighs the generation. But I'm all for more PV installations.

[oil pan 4]

I saw an article some time around 2013 or 2014 talking about how it was not economicly feasible to recycle lithium batteries and how most of the ones we think are being recycled are going to the land fill.
Another article from this year or last year recommends that used up hybrid and electric car lithium batteries that still hold some power be used as power grid storage storage since recycling wasn't feasible.
I never said recycling these batteries wasn't possible.
Announcing and doing are 2 different things.
The fact that tesla announced they want to do a closed loop battery recycling thing is proof there is no effective large scale lithium battery recycling going on.