Nairda
There is no benefit in using the same vehicle batteries in a static environment unless you are really in a nook. Seems archaic, but unless you live in a small apartment and single car port, there is way more saving in a lead acid / gel deep cycle battery bank.
windykites
I wouldn't fancy that sitting outside my front door! It's huge!
Seriously, though, this battery bank will cost more money than you can save on electricity. The payback period must run into years (rather like having solar panels)
Really the best use for solar panels is either charging an electric vehicle, which probably only works when you have two electric vehicles, as you want to drive it during the day, and that is when the electricity is available. The other way to use the daytime electricity is by heating an insulated tank of water, using a circuit which detects when spare electricity is being generated.
Vadim Romanovich
Tesla if you need a home to test the system on, I'm more then happy to have you install this system on my home. I'm in the Chicago suburbs.
Glers
Good to see that so many Companies and institutions are investing and researching better ways to get us off of oil and coal,
drender
How do they handle the flammability of lithium batteries? House fires are very common. Homeowners know better than to store gasoline or propane inside the house, so.. I guess this home battery needs to be outside? Seems like a very costly warm-climate only solution.
steveraxx
Do you not simply adore all of the negative comments and naysayers who post on gizmag. . . Nothing is ever going to work according to the resident pundits.
I love this, so easy to have this as a one stop backup to house power. Now when power goes out this would kick in and we are set to go.
I do see a lot of people seem to be to poor to enjoy new technology or just paranoid about using new things.
YukonJack
I guess it all depends on what your 501 is invested in. This is great news for me since I live in the southwest where we have a free power source and all you have to do is spend a few hours with a pencil and paper to draw up a way to harness it or at least store it a few hours. Kudos to Tesla.
Ray Boggs
Sounds romantic, doesn't it ? Free yourself from the evil grid. What you are all ignoring is the cost. Tesla might have some advantage due to their relationship with Panasonic but that probably still won't reduce the total cost of this type of system low enough to make the use of Li-ion batteries in residential storage applications pencil out financially. The cost of Li-ion batteries would have to drop to about $100 per kWh and that won't happen anytime soon.
Even cheap lead acid battery technology doesn't pencil out for daily cycling use when compared to the cost of grid power so how could hyper expensive Li-ion pencil out today?
Better go back to sleep for another 10 years because maybe then Li-ion might make sense.
John Birk
There are a plethora of energy storage technologies coming to market starting this year, Tesla, Aquion, AMBI and many others.
Some can stand hundreds of 100% discharge with no degradation, as well as being non-toxic and non-explosive.
Some such as AMBI's Liquid Metal Battery will degrade to only 80% of capacity after only ........... 305 years!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iwG32R2R5o
We are approaching a tipping point, UBS consulting and Bloomberg have predicted by 2020 it will take only 6 years to pay off your home solar/energy storage/ electric car all of which will easily last 20 years plus, much of the annual 7 trillion dollars spent on energy will remain in the pockets of billions worldwide, the resulting increase of disposable income will engender a cleaner greener future and finally the average citizen will get a fair deal.
If you think this will not come to pass, consider this, the Rockefeller family is getting out of the fossil fuel business.
When low cost energy storage comes to market and you are in the fossil fuel business, be afraid ....... be very afraid!
Scientia Non Domus, (Knowledge has No Home)
antiguajohn