Tesla's New Powerwall Packs a Powerful Punch
Ryan Wallace for The Science Times: Known as the "Powerwall", Tesla's newest invention is a thin, wall-mounted battery that is the size of a flat screen TV. And with this new battery home owners who have already invested in solar power will be able to entirely go off the grid, and even to sell their excess solar juice back to energy companies.
Developed in conjunction with the lithium-ion batteries that Tesla uses for its electric vehicles, the Powerwall unit is an inexpensive unit, only running $3,000 to $3,500, and with it Musk and his companies believe that humans may one day be able to transition to solely using energy derived from the Sun. Though the installation may look like an artpiece, it packs quite a punch at 10 kWh, and with it consumers will not only be able to store their energy for dark solar-free nights, but also more efficiently contribute to global energy use by contributing carbon-free energy back into the mix.
SUNRUN AND TESLA COLLABORATE TO OFFER CONSUMERS HOME ENERGY STORAGE NATIONWIDE
Tesla Powerwall to be Offered Through Sunrun Subsidiary AEE Solar
Elon Musk's big announcement: it's called 'Tesla Energy'
Late Thursday night in Los Angeles, Tesla announced "Tesla Energy," described by the company in a statement as "a suite of batteries for homes, businesses, and utilities fostering a clean energy ecosystem and helping wean the world off fossil fuels."
The statement continued: "Tesla is not just an automotive company, it’s an energy innovation company. Tesla Energy is a critical step in this mission to enable zero emission power generation."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made the official announcement onstage at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, CA, just south of LA.
The home battery, call the "Powerwall," is intended to store solar energy and enable customers to bank grid electricity from non-peak periods and use it during peak times, saving money. It looks "like a beautiful piece of sculpture," Musk said. You can order it now, and it comes in different colors.
"The Tesla Powerwall is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed to store energy at a residential level for load shifting, backup power and self-consumption of solar power generation," Tesla said.
"The Powerwall consists of Tesla’s lithium-ion battery pack, liquid thermal control system and software that receives dispatch commands from a solar inverter. The unit mounts seamlessly on a wall and is integrated with the local grid to harness excess power and give customers the flexibility to draw energy from their own reserve."
Sun Xtender Launches New Website at www.SunXtender.com
The new site features expanded content on battery construction and explains what sets Sun Xtender apart as the superior energy storage solution by comparison to flooded lead acid, gel and other AGM battery designs.
Boston-Power Supplies Batteries for Residential Solar Storage
Boston-Power and Darfon enter 3-year battery supply agreement to target global residential solar storage market. Initial product launches in Australia and the UK.
Sungevity And Sonnenbatterie Announce Partnership To Offer Home Energy Storage To Customers In The U.S. And Europe
Partnership to Deliver New Levels of Energy Independence, Cost Savings, and Backup Power During Outages
AES Energy Storage Announces 260 MW of Interconnected Global Projects in Construction or Late Stage Development
AES announces the expansion of its existing fleet into new markets, including the Companys first utility scale project within the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) in the United States and the first two projects in Europe.
Swedish fuel cell developer PowerCell launched next-generation fuel cell stack, S2, during the Hannover Fair
PowerCells fuel cell stack is designed to work in an auxiliary power unit (APU) environment on reformate gas as well as on a variety of systems running on pure hydrogen, for both automotive and stationary applications.
SPI Announces Strategic Partnership with Leading Developer of Energy Storage Systems
SPI's PV solutions to integrate ZBB Energy's advanced energy storage systems in PV markets worldwide
NEC Energy Expands 12-Volt High Power Lithium-Ion Battery Family With Next Generation Product
The ALM 12V7s product line offers up to twice the usable energy, 50X greater cycle life, and 50% lighter weight than comparable lead-acid batteries.
The $5 Billion Race to Build a Better Battery
Professor Donald Sadoway remembers chuckling at an e-mail in August 2009 from a woman claiming to represent Bill Gates. The world’s richest man had taken Sadoway’s Introduction to Solid State Chemistry online, the message explained. Gates wondered if he could meet the guy teaching the popular MIT course the next time the billionaire was in the Boston area, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its May issue. “I thought it was a student prank,” says Sadoway, who’s spent more than a decade melting metals in search of a cheap, long-life battery that might wean the world off dirty energy. He’d almost forgotten the note when Gates’s assistant wrote again to plead for a response.
A month later, Gates and Sadoway were swapping ideas on curbing climate change in the chemist’s second-story office on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus. They discussed progress on batteries to help solar and wind compete with fossil fuels. Gates said to call when Sadoway was ready to start a company. “He agreed to be an angel investor,” Sadoway says. “It would have been tough without that support.”
Sadoway is ready. He and a handful of scientists with young companies and big backers say they have a shot at solving a vexing problem: how to store and deliver power around the clock so sustainable energies can become viable alternatives to fossil fuels. How these storage projects are allowing utility power customers to defect from the grid is one of the topics for debate this week at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York. Today’s nickel-cadmium and lithium-ion offerings aren’t up to the task. They can’t run a home for more than a few hours or most cars for more than 100 miles (160 kilometers). At about $400 per kilowatt-hour, they’re double the price analysts say will unleash widespread green power. “Developing a storage system beyond lithium-ion is critical to unlocking the value of electric vehicles and renewable energy,” says Andrew Chung, a partner at Menlo Park, California–based venture capital firm Khosla Ventures.
Aquion Energy and Ideal Power Announce Technology Partnership
Aquion Energy Verifies Compatibility of Power Conversion Systems and Aqueous Hybrid Ion Batteries
OutBack Power Launches Energy Storage Incentive Program for Solar Installers
New program motivates installers to participate in the future of energy storage
UH Researchers Discover N-Type Polymer for Fast Organic Battery
New Material Opens the Door to Low-Cost, Environmentally Friendly Energy Use
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