Most countries rely on fossil fuels for energy but great strides have been made to find an alternative source of energy which does not harm the environment that we live in. Such is the introduction of Tesla battery which has heralded the beginning of the end for fossil fuels to produce electricity.
Wind and solar power made huge developments in recent years, with renewable now reaching 22% of electric energy generated, the issue that has held them back has been their transience. The sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind doesn’t blow year-round – these are some of the disadvantages associated with all those opposed to the progress of renewables.
Renewable power billionaire Elon Musk in California recently introduced to the world his shiny new Tesla battery Powerwall – a wall-mounted energy storage unit that can hold 10 kilowatt hours of electric energy, and deliver it at an average of 2 kilowatts, all for US$3,500.
That translates into an electricity price (taking into account installation costs and inverters) of around US$500 per kWh – less than half current costs, as estimated by Deutsche Bank.
That translates into delivered energy at around 6 cents per kWh for the householder, meaning that a domestic system plus storage would still come out ahead of coal-fired power delivered through the conventional grid.
Worth noting is that Musk will manufacture the Tesla battery in the United States, at the “gigafactory” he is building just over the border from California in Nevada. He is not waiting for some totally new technology, but is scaling up the tried and tested lithium-ion Tesla battery that he is already using for his electric vehicles.