From the Roof, to a Battery, to the Grid .... SolarCity

Solar garage storage: Tesla battery

In the garage of Peter Rive’s San Francisco home is a Tesla Motors lithium-ion battery pack. It is not connected to Mr. Rive’s electric Tesla Roadster sports car, but to the power grid.

The California Public Utilities Commission has awarded $1.8 million to Mr. Rive’s company, SolarCity, a residential photovoltaic panel installer, to research the feasibility of storing electricity generated by rooftop solar arrays in batteries.

As rooftop solar systems provide a growing percentage of electricity to California’s grid, regulators and utilities are increasingly concerned about how to balance the intermittent nature of that power with demand.

One possible solution is to store energy generated by solar arrays in batteries and other systems and then feed that electricity to the grid when, say, a cloudy day results in a drop in power production. And when demand peaks, electricity generated from renewable sources could be dispatched from batteries rather than fossil-fuel burning power plants.

“As soon as distributed solar starts providing 5 to 10 percent of demand, its intermittent nature will need to be addressed,” said Mr. Rive, who is SolarCity’s co-founder and chief operating officer.

Store surplus power make Ice for AC

SunPower, a Silicon Valley solar panel manufacturer and power plant developer, will work with Ice Energy, a Colorado company that makessystems that use electricity when rates are low to form ice. When rates are high, air conditioning refrigerant is cooled by the melting ice rather than by an electricity-hogging compressor

Reader comment: used car batteries for homes

I have been given to understand that USED batteries from electric cars; like those from the Prius; still have a great deal of capacity left; just not enough to provide good performance for a car. They need longer to recharge, and/or discharge when older; but retain most of the actual capacity.

It was suggested to me that such batteries could provide very inexpensive; but very effective, storage; at many places in the grid.

Assuming all this is true- put me down as an enthusiast for this direction. It should make electric cars cheaper; since the batteries would retain much of their value even when being replaced- and provide a great deal of functionality for the grid.

source NYTimes: green.blogs.nytimes.com

http://www.solarcity.com

Comment: Solar village smart grid

with later home Hydrogen fuel cell

the home gets the storage place

.....Jeremy Rifkin