It’s no secret that Elon Musk serves as chair Solar City, the biggest play in residential solar in the US. That puts the Tesla and Solar City in a very unique position that could transform the residential solar industry.
What is the similarity between homes and cars? Nothing right now. But hopefully high capacity and safer battery banks could change that. Tesla’s cars have been traveling at high speeds for long distances thanks to their batteries, batteries that are practically the same as the ones you use in your laptops. But since the car maker is able to purchase them in volume, they are able to get them at lower prices, and prices are set to get even lower with the opening of the Gigafactory in Nevada.
Now they are lending that ability to make big banks of lithium ion batteries to Solar City that will allow the latter’s customers to practically go off grid and go all solar.
For example, one can get a 10 kW-hour Tesla battery under a 10-year lease program. Under this deal, you shell out US$1,500 upfront and pay US$15/month for the next 10 years. A 10 kW-hour battery is enough to power up the refrigerator, lights and other stuff and if you’re an energy miser, it would be more than enough for your needs.
While still far off, the deal could get even better when the Gigafactory comes on line. So if the savings already make sense for you now, maybe now is the time to give it a go.
“A 10 kW-hour battery is enough to power up the refrigerator, lights and other stuff”. Refrigerators, lights and other stuff DOES NOT need a “battery” that is “solar charged” AND THEN CONVERTED to AC.
Almost everything in the domestic home, that is plugged into an AC outlet is internally converted to “low-voltage DC” (as is the computer I’m using). Incandescent lights are engineered to use AC (and to also burn-out), but should have been replaced by low voltage DC L.E.D.s long ago.
While Solar is always the way to go, there is no reason that Direct Solar can’t be used to power ANYTHING that’s DC. That simply means moving away from today’s mind numbing practice of converting Solar DC to AC, to be converted back to DC (to run modern day appliances).
The refrigerator, A/C and the washing machine use AC motors and since they are usually the bigger loads in the house, I guess that the default wiring is set to AC.