Unwelcome bumps in the road for Australia’s Redflow
Australian energy storage company Redflow has temporarily suspended delivery of new battery stock after detecting the presence of impurities beyond an acceptable level in battery electrolyte.
Search Results for: south australia
The Billionaire’s Gambit – Why we should politely decline.
Note from Finn:
This post is Ronald’s considered opinion of Elon Musk’s offer. My personal opinion (with caveats) is that we should accept the offer. I’ll publish a post later today with my reasoning.
Elon Musk has offered to sell South Australia large scale Tesla battery storage of 100 megawatt-hours or more. He says it will cost $250 US dollars at the “pack level” per kilowatt-hour which is around $333 at today’s exchange rate. What’s more, he has promised it will be installed within 100 days of the contract being signed or it’s free.
This may be the best offer that has ever been made for large scale lithium battery storage. But despite the small chance we would get it for free, I think our reply should be a polite, “No thank you.”
South Australia doesn’t need a large amount of battery storage to solve its current electricity supply problems and so there are better alternatives to spend the money on. If in the future it turns out it would be useful we can get it then and it should be even cheaper. [Read more…]
Blackouts In SA While Generators Stand Idle & Politicians Bicker
Joyce titters, Weatherill gets mad, Australia cooks.
Late on Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of a heatwave, electricity was cut off to roughly 90,000 Adelaide properties for around 45 minutes.
Because I have access to a working TV at the moment1 I have seen an implausible number of people shitting bricks over this incident. So many bricks I could use them to build a Great Wall of South Australia. I’m sure it would be effective at keeping foreigners out. After all, who’d want to enter a state surrounded by shitty bricks?
To all the people who are acting like this is some sort of unprecedented event2, I have to ask which bloody country do you live in? Rolling blackouts during heatwaves in Australia are not uncommon and have occurred in every mainland state, including those that are almost entirely powered by coal.
But for those who are complaining for the right reasons, your anger is bloody well justified. [Read more…]
Despite What The Coalition Says Or Doesn’t Say, The “Solar Rebate” Won’t End Soon
Will they scrap the Renewable Energy Target (and by extension the ‘Solar Rebate’) or won’t they?
The Australian newspaper has reported that a couple of Coalition MPs have said Australia should scrap its Renewable Energy Target (RET) if Donald Trump dumps the United States’ commitment to the Paris climate agreement. [Read more…]
2016 The Good News: CO2 Emissions Level Off, Cost Of Solar Falls
It has become fashionable to refer to 2016 as a horrible year. An annus horribilis.
If your personal annus has been horribilis, then you have my condolences. But I think, for most of the world’s population, it has actually been a pretty good year. An annus prettigoodis if you will. [Read more…]
How many solar panels should you install with a Powerwall 2?
Installing more rooftop solar is a better investment than a Powerwall 2, so always rack up as much solar on your roof as you reasonably can first. Unlike this guy.
The Tesla Powerwall 2 is going to be big. Really big. I mean that literally and not figuratively. It’s going to be big as in 13.5 kilowatt-hours of storage big. From the point of view of most Australian households that is huge.
This large capacity presents households with two main problems:
- It is more than the average Australian household uses at night.
- Those that do use that much electricity overnight may not have a rooftop solar system large enough to fully charge it.
So if the average Australian home buys a Powerwall 2 they will use it at less than its full capacity. As Tesla’s warranty is fixed at a maximum of 10 years, this increases the cost of each warranted kilowatt-hour substantially.
The obvious solutions are:
- Don’t install a Powerwall 2 unless your household regularly uses 12+ kilowatt-hours of electricity overnight.
- Don’t install a Powerwall 2 unless your solar system normally produces enough surplus electricity to fully charge it on a mostly clear day. Normally this will require at least 5 kilowatts of solar panels.
Cost Of Powerwall 2 Drops 9% Overnight
The Tesla Powerwall 2 is now $800 cheaper in Australia.
Tesla appears to be unsure about how much to charge Australians for the Powerwall 2.
Or maybe they are sure, but confused about how the Australian dollarydoo works.
Perhaps they’ve been confusing it with the New Zealand doubloon or the Fijian guilder?
I know I often do.
“Crikey! 900 dollarydoos to the New Zealand doubloon and 6 centaroos to the Fijian guilder!”
Reposit Power Review: Does It Really Halve The Payback Time Of Your Battery?
Do you feel lucky? Maybe you can make a great return with Reposit by selling electricity to the grid, and maybe you can’t. Find out with our Reposit Power review.
Reposit is a Canberra based startup. They make software which optimizes the performance of a home battery system. The software is installed on a controller the size of a circuit breaker that sits in your switchboard. [Read more…]
Will Trump Take A Dump On Solar?
Will Trump destroy the US clean energy industry?
Donald Trump has won the US Presidential election. The people of the United States of America have spoken. They haven’t spoken very well, but they have done it. And since they will have a guy in charge who never shuts up, they’re not likely to stop now.
The Tesla Powerwall 2: Batteries Can Finally Pay For Themselves
Elon Musk proclaims the coronation of Powerwall 2.0
Today at 12:15 Eastern Standard Time, Elon Musk announced the arrival of the Tesla Powerwall 2.
Some people were enthusiastically looking forward to this announcement, but I was not. I fully expected to be underwhelmed, and as soon as Musk finished his two or three sentences on the actual system, I felt a near fatal lack of enthusiasm sweeping over me. [Read more…]
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