I think that if we can get past the glamour and cliché of the Tesla brand, there is actually a very crowded and mature field of suppliers in this area already. Yes, Tesla will sell these, but value shoppers not swayed by hype will find plenty of existing, established "plug and play" high quality alternatives in this market already. Some regional electricity hubs, like the State of Hawaii, would actually greatly benefit from residential battery systems, as the vast number of solar panels located throughout the islands creates an equipment and system unfriendly "backcurrent" situation on the grid during daylight hours. Really heats up transformers and the distribution system.
Tesla 10kwh Powerwall battery bank - 3,500, 10-12 hr backup Generac 11kwh generator - 2,500, ongoing backup
Sure musk over hypes..but take it in this context. U run solar on house, excess to battery..discharge when no sunlight..rinse repeat. You are fully off grid and most likely selling back a lot of power still. Note, I'm a cubic inch lover having boats, fast cars all my life..but this whole premise tesla is on is super imo. Even if he is over promising..it gets us going in the right direction.
The problem with batteries as a sole solution, as we have seen from the U. Minn. Engineering study ( re: battery powered cars ), is that they are essentially generating more greenhouse gases to charge them than conventional solutions, and they have a very limited replacement power lifespan and a very expensive replacement cost. An LP or NG powered generator would be cleaner, much cheaper, and have an incredibly longer generation time. Unless you live in an urban high rise, IMHO the LP / NG Generator wins on all metrics - including greenhouse gas emissions. Outside of Chicago, no other U.S. Urban area has the nuclear or solar or wind generation capacity to charge batteries on a commercial scale without fossil fueled generation implications.
Re lp, yes it's clean, green, usa made..and can running indefinitely. I have a 500 gallon tank for my pool and recently set up a home lp genset to it..so I'm with todays realities. Citing university studies u know is nonsense as I can easily counter the study with others..my point is anyone with half a brain realizes solar with storage is needed and most likely will be as cost effective as any alternative soon enough.
I cannot remember when I had the problem of power going down the last time... must have been years ago. Internet the same remark, cannot remember when I had that problem the last time... must have been years ago too. But if the problem occurs I take my mobile phone and close my trades. There are 240 days a year (48 weeks after taking holidays) that I can trade, so what will be the difference when missing part of 1 day? And my mobile phone network will stay operational minimum 2 hours after the power goes out. So even if the whole country will go down I can still use my mobile phone for 2 hours which is more than needed to close my trades. So no batteries, no UPS, no anything else. Just close and take some free time. And surely the greenest solution.
What everyone here should know is how to contact their broker and have an tested and agreed method of closing out existing positions should any disaster occur (power down, computers broken, death-in-the-family, lightning strike/tornado etc. to destroy your entire infrastructure). Sure the brokerage will cost you more but so what. Better yet, have a trusted independent person that can initiate this for you on your behalf at your command who has trained and practised that event.
Cant you tether the 3G internet from your phone? This usually works for me even though the cable internet is down
I can remember just a handful of outages/ IB downtime in last 5-10 yrs. Everyone of them worked out in my favor by just waiting. I think that says a lot about trading doesn't it?
Tesla Gets 1st Utility-Scale Deal For Its Battery Storage System http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-gets-1st-utility-scale-213700997.html