NGCP

My understanding is that they do a very good job of managing how the the Li-ion batteries are used and have improved on the manufacturing costs more so than the battery itself. Although lately Elon has been talking about some new secret sauce, yet to be seen. The thing I found interesting is it really just thousands of 18650 battery connected together, not one big battery.

https://insideevs.com/news/332702/everything-you-need-to-know-about-teslas-lithium-ion-batteries/

 

I looked into solar panels a bit, the problems I still wrestle with:
1. When tied to the Noreco grid they pay you their "generation rate", which at best is only about half of what the customer pays per kwh. In other words, they don't do proper net-metering.
2. Being tied to the grid, you still suffer blackouts, your solar system shuts down automatically during blackout, to avoid electrocuting Noreco's workmen. Only way to avoid this is with batteries and/or a different type inverter.
3. Batteries are still quite expensive, if you'd manage to get one here, Tesla's home wall is priced around 11,000 US$ (including installation) last time I checked, and it's not rated to run your entire house on (you'd need at least two of them to run the whole lot).

 

Right, being attached to the grid without battery storage subjects you to the same brownout reliability problems as the grid. And there is a worker safety problem unless you have a transfer switch (generator owners are familiar with them) that disconnects your home power source from the grid during brownouts. Assuming you have that, you can have power during brownouts while the sun is shining but need battery storage for night and cloudy weather. The batteries can be charged by both the sun and grid power when available.

I agree that it is too costly now. Those Polaris panels may indeed last 25 years as they say and 50 of them plus inverters is probably cost about 500K. The batteries are another 500k.

1 million php seems like a lot but some of these expat houses are running 10-15 mil or more. Hey, if you retire here as a new resident with a fat 401k and of course are married to a citizen (to buy house and lot), I can see how people might go for if they know about the brownout problem and you do get some payback in power bills.

My problem is that even if the solar panels are good for 25 years and the inverters are simply a reasonable cost maintenance issue, the batteries are not going to last 25 years. I would guess that after an initial capacity of 100%, after year one there is a drastic decline down to 80%, then 60% and they are gone after 7-10 years.

If the battery tech improves in lifetime charge cycles and cost drop like the solar panels did, then there could be a mass movement to solar, not to save money, not because fuel is scarce but mainly because people want reliable power. You can do that now with generators and many do that but those are a pain to keep fueled and maintain. And noisy and unsafe when not handled properly. And we all have that free fuel source on our rooftops. If it weren’t for that battery problem...well, maybe in 15 years or so it will be a completely different picture.


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Do you expect to be paid more than the generation rate?
Why would they pay you more than they pay other generators?

The other half of your bill is the "delivery charge". The cost of building and maintaining the wiring infrastructure. This is charged equally so people in the electrically dense town are subsidizing those who are at the end of long runs. The delivery charge is a fixed cost no matter how much electricity you use.

Frankly, people who generate their own electricity get to avoid paying a portion of the cost of connecting their house to the grid. In this sense they are free loading on others.

Some utilities are beginning to treat the delivery charge as a fixed rate. In this way people who generate their own electricity are still charged the cost of the infrastructure to connect their home to the grid. This is the fair way of distributing the infrastructure costs. If the customer does not want to participate they can disconnect from the grid and go their own way.

I am tired of subsidizing other peoples bad economic decisions.

 

In many countries the "delivery charge" is charged as a flat amount for each connection, (modest for residential, higher for commercial, and even more for industrial) not as a variable amount tied to the amount of kwh that the customer uses. And then the kwh rate will be the generation rate, and utilities can do proper net metering for self generating customers, meaning that you pay only the net kwh that you use on top of the flat amount). Here there's no fixed amount per connection, so if your house sits empty you pay nothing, while the utility is still supposed to maintain their delivery system for you also.
And no, with Noreco it's not only a "delivery charge" that you pay on top of the kwh generation cost, you also pay a bunch of subsidies (e.g. for senior citizens) in the total kwh price.

 

Some Filipinos have been connecting those batteries together to make solar batteries and selling them on FB or using them for own use.
Easy to do but need a lot of patience and good eye sight. Lazada sell them.

 

Talking here about grid power and powering a whole house: Each battery is rated 3.7v nominal at 3000 mAh (3 amp hour). That is about 11 watt hour, impressive for its small size but: To power I house here I would figure about a 10Kw (10,000 watts) so indeed for an hour’s worth of energy you are talking about thousands of these batteries, charged, as someone previous mentioned. But 1000 in a box of 18mm x 65mm cylinders in a box is not extremely large. I am surprised! The tech is moving faster than I have been keeping up. The cost seems to average $6.00 in a quantity of 1. So $6000 and probably a good discount for a volume of 1000. This is something worth looking into; I learned something new today. Thanks to you younger people for updating us on the tech

 

I would be very careful with opting for a solution like that. I am not an expert in any way shape or form, but I wonder how those tiny batteries would be connected to each other, and what happens if a few of them fail or are faulty to begin with.

 

And I'm talking about cabbs quote.