Tesla 85kWh Battery Pack Tear Down for Off Grid / Solar Energy Storage Project

Check out this Time Lapse video of  a Tesla Model S owner, desassembling another Model S Battery Pack, to use the 16 24V Modules in his future Energy Storage Project !




We don't see this very often ...

His - Awesome ! - Solar Energy Storage Project can be followed here - still in progress - :

Project Description:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/34531-Plan-Off-grid-solar-with-a-Model-S-battery-pack-at-the-heart

Disassembling the Model S Battery Pack:

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/34934-Pics-Info-Inside-the-battery-pack

Norcal Veteran Coder Built his Dream Off-Grid House

Loren Amelang once helped code for Silicon Valley companies, but he'd always been sensitive to environment so when his employer installed fluorescent lighting and wouldn't let employees use their own lights, he decided to move to the country and craft his off-grid dream home.

Today he lives with "clean air, a great view, free hot water and free power, and a decent chunk of free heat". The entire south side of his home is covered in solar capture devices: 1600 watts of photovoltaic power, solar hot water panels, a sunroom/greenhouse and a solar hot air collector. The sunroom/greenhouse provides most of the free heat via the 'solar flue' that moderates it in warmer weather or circulates some of it into the house when needed, and the concrete walls that stabilize the temperature over time.

Putting his technical skills to use (he's a pioneer in C++ programming), Amelang wrote over 10,000 lines of code so that his home's water and electric systems could be operated remotely, by even just an iPhone.

Since he built most of the home himself (the person he hired to do it decades ago, spent all the money and built half the house), Amelang has made it very custom. He avoided using aluminum and plastic (except for the insulation on the wiring) and he wired it for pure DC lighting (which makes sense with solar, but Amelang also likes how "peaceful" DC lighting feels).

Building on his own terms means that Amelang created a home that doesn't look or feel like anyone else's, but it works well and makes sense. For instance, he designed an audio system where you can "walk around in the sound space and feel where you are" and a central locking system for all exterior doors so that when he leaves the house he doesn't have to lock 12 different doors, but just turns one key and they all lock.

* This is a follow-up story with Loren. The original stories from 2011: -- C++ programming pioneer hacks off-grid, DIY, smart home
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...
-- 96-square-foot tiny home handbuilt inside century-old barn
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

** Note: Loren has always seen the world differently, in a literal sense and he is hoping to hear from anyone who might experience the same phenomenon. He explains they are "issues are with brain-level perception and my expectations of how the visual world should work". He writes about it more in detail in his blog post "Consumed by the light": http://psychoros.org/lightFrame.html

Energy Storage: Rural Electrification’s Backup

"Energy storage represents a key element to ensure the proper functioning of any system and will contribute to the positive development of the entire industry."

The Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE)’s objective is to stimulate economic development through the promotion of off-grid renewable energy technologies for rural electrification in developing countries and emerging markets. While often grid extension is not a feasible option, decentralized solutions are often the better alternative to alleviate energy poverty: they are cost-effective over the system’s lifetime, easy-to-deploy, install and maintain and their design can be tailored to demand needs. Plus, these regions offer abundant renewable energy resources.

Despite the solid arguments to support off-grid renewables as the best solution for remote areas, there is still one open question: What happens with the electricity service when the sun stops shining or the wind doesn't blow? No doubt this is a relevant issue which may prevent local energy decision makers from including renewable energy sources in their rural electrification plans. Fortunately, present markets offer technologies that enable storing energy for its use at a later time. Many of these solutions have reached maturity and therefore are being increasingly used to improve efficiency, reliability and price-competitiveness of electricity services as well as to achieve deeper penetration of renewable energy systems.

Energy storage technologies can be applied twofold: First for off-grid systems installed in rural areas, and second for decentralized grid backup in peri-urban areas that remain under-electrified.

To ease the path to these solutions, ARE has launched the six-month “Energy Storage Campaign.” This initiative aims to inform decision makers in Africa, Asia and Latin America about the added value that energy storage offers to rural areas.

It’s All Happening

The success of the campaign has been built upon the expertise of a group of rural electrification experts. These nine members of the Alliance based in three different continents and with a wide experience on the topic have formed the ARE Energy Storage Task Force with the objective of shaping this initiative and to find answers to ‘What really matters!’

As a result, the ARE Secretariat jointly with the Energy Storage Task Force has developed the position paper Using batteries to ensure clean, reliable and affordable universal electricity access. This guide paper includes information and recommendations for decision makers, applications of the different types of battery technologies, as well as successful case studies from India, Bangladesh, Jordan, Peru and Mozambique. The position paper has a focus on electromechanical energy storage, in particular on four different families of batteries, as they remain the main technology applied to off-grid.

Energy storage represents a key element to ensure the proper functioning of any system and will contribute to the positive development of the entire industry:
Batteries will improve the system’s performance and lead to economic savings over its lifetime and thereby lower operational costs if properly designed and maintained. In this regard, it is of utmost importance to use certified equipment and observe international standards while designing, installing and operating the system in order to ensure its longevity.
The stand-by battery market is expanding rapidly in developing and emerging markets, which represent important growth niches for the sector. The increasing demand of batteries can facilitate deeper penetration of intermittent renewables in these regions. For example, whereas Africa represented the smallest market for European stand-by battery systems (2V cells and mono blocks) in 2011 with 3.5 percent of total sales, it was the region in the world which enjoyed by far the highest growth rates with an increase of 25 percent compared to the year before.
Batteries play two major roles in terms of energy management. Short-term: The battery regulates the system by absorbing or supplying power to maintain a balance between instantaneous power production and consumption. Long-term: Allows storing electricity at a period of peak production, thus avoiding wastage of energy at times when it is not required and supplying energy when intermittent primary energy resources are unavailable.
The remote areas where off-grid renewable energies operate are vast and diverse. Thanks to the existence of different chemical battery families, each of them with its own specific features, storage systems can be designed to play a wide range of roles perfectly fitting local conditions.

Not without the Public Sector

Energy storage applied to rural electrification is attracting a lot of attention these days. However, these are still young markets which need more explanation and promotion. The support from public authorities, particularly regulators, as well as power sector technical bodies -such as rural electrification agencies and public utilities-would certainly help stimulate more investments in the market. To enhance developments, ARE has formulated the following recommendations for decision makers:
Developing and enforcing a well fitted regulatory framework is critical to ensure the market’s sustainable development and consumer’s trust.
A well tailored framework should be complemented via awareness creation campaigns and technical assistance to the operations sector (manufacturers, installers, operators, recyclers).
Establishing policy targets for batteries, as it is done for renewable energies, could help stimulate the sector’s development.
The achievement of these targets should be stimulated with the establishment of specific support schemes and assistance to the financing sector.

Learning from the Past to Improve the Future

The kick-off of the “Energy Storage Campaign” was held at Intersolar Europe in June 2013, where ARE celebrated a successful workshop as official side event of the conference. Further promotion activities will include several webinars in collaboration with international organisations such as the United Nations Foundation Energy Access Practitioner Network, the creation of new papers on other storage technologies, as well as other workshops in international events, among others.

Thanks to the experience gained with the “Small Wind Campaign”, the expertise of the Energy Storage Task Force and the support of the industry, ARE expects to facilitate business dialogue between private and public sector on the advantages of energy storage.

This is not the first time ARE has launched such a campaign. Last year the focus was small wind power, and now it is the turn of energy storage, a technology that undoubtedly will make a difference in the long way towards achieving universal access to reliable and sustainable electricity in remote areas.





Source: Renewable Energy World

SMA SPS - SECURE POWER SUPPLY on SMA Sunny Boy 3000TL US 4000TL US 5000TL US

"If the Sun is Up and the Grid is Down ..."

Here is a short video of the great feature SMA inverters can offer: the SPS for Secure Power Supply

Usually, on all inverters, in case of a power outage, a mandatory feature is the automatic cut off of production to protect grid workers from electric shock

If the grid is down and your solar roof is still in the sun, you can now have the inverter keep producing on dedicated outlets controlled by a switch that triggers this function on the system... What a great idea !

DIY ESS Kit User Manual is finished

Finally the last document for the build of the DIY ESS is written, just finished it 5 minutes ago

After the Kit Building Documentation and the Components List, this last step will cover the daily use of the newly built DIY ESS:

- In Case of any Problem/Emergency

- Switch ON the ESS

- Switch OFF the ESS

- Protecting the ESS battery pack for long period of no use

- Protecting the ESS battery pack from Low Generation or No Generation at all

- Forced Charge Mode

Fighting Blackouts: Japan Residential PV and Energy Storage Market Flourishing

San Diego, CA -- In the past, a PV system with battery storage was associated with the off-grid system — not connected to the utility grid. The battery stores the energy produced by the PV system and when the sun goes down, electricity is drawn from the battery. In Japan, the battery became attractive to store electricity from "the grid," to reduce electricity bills.

After the devastation of the Tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Mach 2011, Japan became painfully aware of the importance of both safety and maintaining a steady supply of electricity. The combination of a PV system and battery storage gives consumers the ability to produce, store and supply electricity throughout the day at their own home for power outages and emergencies. However, the system can bring economic benefits — electricity bill reduction — during normal days.

Like California, utilities in Japan offer Time-of Use (TOU) rates. How homeowners can reduce electricity bills can be illustrated by using Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) current (non-summer) TOU rates for all-electric homes with a PV system.

- Purchase and store electricity from the grid at off-peak hour (11 pm – 7 am) at ¥11.82/kWh [US $0.12]

- Sell PV-generated electricity to the utility at the FIT premium rate of ¥38.0/kWh [US $0.38]

- Use PV-generated electricity during day time, otherwise paying at ¥30.77 (10 am – 5 pm) [US $0.31] and use stored electricity between 7 and 10 am and between 5 and 11 pm, otherwise paying ¥25.2/kWh [US $0.25]

With the battery storage, PV homeowners can ultimately buy electricity at the lowest rate (¥11.82/kWh or $0.12/kWh) and sell at the highest price (¥38/kWh or $0.38/kWh).

The key domestic PV makers, Panasonic, Kyocera and Sharp, all now offer lithium-ion battery storage along with a PV home system to meet consumers’ demand. Their goal is to move beyond PV and expand into a total Home Energy Management System (HEMS3) arena.

Kyocera started offering PV plus lithium-ion battery storage to homeowners in early 2012 with a target of selling 10,000 units from April 2012 to March 2013. Panasonic also released home battery storage systems that can be connected to Sanyo’s (now Panasonic) HIT PV system. The battery has a capacity of 4.65 kWh and is priced at ¥1.218 million MSRP [US $11,984].

In April, Kyocera released the largest residential lithium-ion battery in Japan. The battery has the capacity of 14.4 kWh, which is priced at an MSRP of ¥4.45million [US $43,784]. This large capacity allows it to power a home refrigerator, TV, computers, lights and cell phone chargers for up to 24 hours.

Kyocera has teamed up with Rakuten, Inc., which operates the nation’s largest internet shopping site, to offer a PV system (poly-Si) and a lithium battery (7.2 kWh) set for homeowners at an affordable price. Rakuten provides options with different sizes of PV systems with the battery, and installed system price (after tax) varies from ¥2.94 million ($29,730) with a-2.28 kW system to ¥4.168 million ($42,153) with a 6.27-kW system. These systems are installed by one of the nation’s largest installers, Nippon Ecosystem, which is part of Itochu Corp.

Residential battery systems remain expensive to average homeowners. To solve this issue,One Energy Corp. has just begun the nation’s first residential energy storage leasing service. Like SolarCity or SunRun’s PV leasing service in the U.S., this requires zero upfront payment to homeowners. The company is a joint venture between Orix, NEC and Epco. NEC provides lithium batteries, whose technology is used for Nissan Leaf electric vehicles.

Besides the energy storage leasing service, One Energy also offers “Yanekari (PV rooftop space leasing)” service. A homeowner can lease a storage system with 5.53 kWh of capacity at between ¥3,045 ($31) to ¥5,145 ($52) a month from One Energy while offering the roof-space to One Energy, making a monthly revenue of ¥2,500 ($25). The image below illustrates how a customer could use an energy storage system to offset the high cost of purchasing energy during peak times.




One Energy currently offers this leasing service in the TEPCO region only and is planning to expand to the Kansai region by the second half of this fiscal year and eventually expand nationwide.

NEC started mass production of residential storage systems in February. Besides partnering with One Energy, the company sells home batteries directly to homebuilders and building material distributors with the goal of selling 15,000 units during this fiscal year.

The company stated that PV homeowners will start storing PV electricity in batteries even more as the FIT rate gets lower in the future, creating a more self-sufficient and less grid-dependent environment.

It is declining, but the national government provides upfront, capacity-based rebates (¥15-20/kW) and a net FIT of ¥38/kWh on excess electricity generation for 10 years) for PV home systems. The government also currently provides a subsidy for lithium-ion battery storage for homeowners. The subsidy is one third of the installed system cost or up to ¥1 million ($10,823).

The hot and humid summer is approaching in Japan. Some of the nation’s utilities have just raised electricity rates and many of them will request that consumers limit and/or shift electricity consumption from peak to off-peak to control raising fossil fuel cost caused by the shutdown of nuclear power plants. With PV + battery systems, homeowners are moving to take energy matters into their own hands in defense against rolling blackouts and rising electricity bills.

Source: Renewable Energy World

i-MiEV HEMS - Home Energy Management System

Now this is very interesting: Mitsubishi has studied the EV Energy Storage part very well, using their i-MiEV and its 16kWh battery pack

ExSolar - Home Solar Power Installation

Martin Lorton shows us his home solar installation and it is very interesting ! A must watch :-)

He explains his choice of solar panels type, grid tie inverter, battery bank, battery charger, energy monitor, and off grid mode switching

On the roof with the solar arrays: his choice: 2000W of monocritallin type panels

His Victron inverters: one the right, a regular grid tie one, and on the left it is a charger/off grid inverter using the battery bank only when the mains is switched off (the orange box is a high DC current switch)

Here, on the left is the power company meter and on the right the battery bank monitor (Victron)

Home electricty panel with a main switch allowing to connect to the grid (power company) or to the battery bank powered inverter (left Victron blue on the second pictures above)

This is the energy monitoring on a computer

The battery charger/off grid inverter system is a Victron Quattro
It has a computer based interface to set up thresholds, timers and behaviours for complete automation