@@WHATSINSIDEFAMILY Elon Tweeted early Roadsters have V2G, have you tried hooking that up? Rather put that big battery into use than just park it in garage.
The point of having battery backup isn’t to run everything at maximum capacity, it’s to keep the essentials running such as fridge and freezers. Not to charge all your electric cars and have the aircon and every light in the house on.
also since he still has his gas Honda, in case of power outage instead of using EV cars, use a gas car because ev needs to charge. you won't be able to do that at home without draining the 2 batteries super fast which can be used for the freezer. He doesn't even need to turn on the lights, instead make just 1-3 rooms or everyone just use phones and turn up or turn off the ac units
Yes but if everything is running when the power goes it will trip. If you know a cut is coming then you can reduce your usage before hand but that doesn't happen. All devices would have to talk to each other so they turn off gracefully and o ly keep essentials running. Is that currently possible? Obviously in the future I'm sure those kind of features would be added.
I finally understand why the powergrid in the USA is struggling 😂. This dude uses more power on his own than my whole street (in the EU) does, taking into account that I have 12 solar panels and still power left to deliver back to the grid (and yes we do have electric cars as well, guess our houses are just a tiny bit smaller 😂😅)
Indeed. I use around 256kWh a month, including charging one EV and excluding my PV. I actually produce almost twice as much electricity as I use. Batteries won’t make sense in my case either, because I get paid more per kWh for the electricity I put in the grid than the electricity I use, plus the PV is on a completely separate meter.
If you live in hot area you will know what it means to consume 100kwh in average daily. b/c everything is not working efficiently the AC and refrigerator will need more electricity just to work normally
And yet people think it’s a good idea to strain the power grid even more with electric vehicles 😂 I’m not an electric vehicle hater, but at the same time don’t force it down our throats. 90% of emissions come from outside the USA, John Kerry said that himself.
15 minutes condensed to one sentence: Don't buy batteries for your solar system if your energy provider offers net metering (and you don't care about powere outages). But thank you for the cool video anyways!
And don’t buy 27kw battery if your consumption is 50kwh at peak. It was really dumb. A 5 minute read of his electric bill should have given him some clues
@@chefgav1 He bought it basically the same time he moved into the house so they didn't really know their consumption. I mean he originally wanted Tesla Solar Roofs during construction.
@@chefgav1 he doesn't need battery at all... 1) he got paid by the utility company for feeding the grid, 2) the cost of a battery can be converted into more solar, which will give him more money.
It's funny how at no point in this video you considered the alternative of consuming less energy. I'm saying that because that's what we did in my house (we only have solar panels), we improved the isolation, changed every light bulbs to LEDs, changed appliances that were too power hungry and monitored our consumption. And guess what? It worked without changing our habits too much. Give it a try, it's worth it.
Then, once every person is living like this and consuming LESS power creating LESS demand... the price will shoot right back up, because the government guarantees all utilities the right to profit.
@@jeffklaubo3168 we’re not talking about the price of energy, being an American I suppose the dollar is the prism through which you understand the world around you. But I’m not, and what I’m talking about is reducing our energy consumption to make our stay on earth a less devastating affair than what we are currently doing. But yeah, money matters, but it won’t make our planet habitable.
@@pignonMZ6 what I'm saying is money is what makes the world go round. Currently with energy being distributed the way it is, no competition, there is no incentive to reduce consumption. There is more incentive to increase consumption than reduce it. Example, There are 500 companies contributing power to the Eastern grid. 500. All of them share and operate on the same grid. You know how many options I have for power companies? 1. I have 1 option. There's no other choice, I have to put up with their bs, incompetence, and lack of caring. They have no incentive to do more or be better because I and the other people here have no choice except living a life without power (good luck), but then the government also guarantees them the right to make a profit. They operate on the worst parts of capitalism and socialism. In reality laws of supply and demand would dictate as people use less energy it would become cheaper as there would be lower demand, when in Stark contrast to that as people use less, they raise their prices. You want people to use less, allow the market to work.
I think Powerwalls, despite them not being financially worth it, are super important. For one reason. Without powerwalls, your solar panels are worthless if the grid goes down. People think that solar panels alone can keep your house running during an outage. But you need the powerwalls to act as the "grid." To absorb excess energy and provide energy to the house. I'm in the same boat as you. I get 1-1 credit for my net energy metering, and the electricity is rather cheap at about 10 cents per kWh. But I choose to get powerwalls for the peace of mind. However, I live in Florida so the chances of extended power outages are way higher here. Also too, I have two Powerwalls and my house is only 1800 square feet and I have 1 Tesla. For you to truly be happy with Powerwalls and for it to be a full house backup solution, you would probably need like 6 at minimum. But if two isn't worth it to you, then 6 definitely wouldn't be.
Do you get 1:1 net metering with Duke Energy? I live in Florida too and I went with three powerwalls for a couple reasons. (1) standby power during outages (2) grid to battery during off peak less expensive times then use stored power to offset costs during peak more expensive times. With Duke, I can sell back at wholesale prices which is the price Duke pays, not the price the sell to me. Curious who your power company is....?
"Without powerwalls, your solar panels are worthless if the grid goes down" - People in the third world use $50 inverters hooked up to car batteries for that scenario, a Powerwall is like buying a Ferrari for the paper round.
It's already been said but no, Powerwalls are not needed (in some and hopefully a LOT of future scenarios). I am driving around with a battery that can hold up to 4-5 days of power for my house (in the summertime when I use more electricity than in the winter). Why not utilize this in a power outage?
If you like to learn Dan, be careful at 9:21 you switched kW and kWh. kW is a unit of power, so your house consumption is in kW (you can see that in your app) kWh is a unit of stored energy, so your Powerwalls should be rated for this. So one of you powerwall is 13.5kWh and is capable of an output of 5kW, that gives us, without loss 2.7 hours of usage out of them. A little physic course for you ;)
Exactly. He is clearly clueless. Assumes that 2 power walls will be enough. Spending 5 minutes reading your electricity bill could have foreseen this pretty quickly
I just got two Powerwalls and I'm really happy with them. I love not having to buy much electricity from the grid and being able to have full electricity when the grid shuts down.
But what would the main reason be that the grid goes down? more consumption and loading it, solar panels can only really power led lights and slowly charge ev's otherwise its all off the grid that runs from mainly burning fossil fuels in most states.
@@tyronenelson9124 The grid can go found for many reasons, like a blown transformer, over loaded, car accident hitting electrical equipment, fires, high winds, maintenance, intentionally shutting it off to prevent fires in high winds, etc.
Never seen this channel before. It popped up for some reason and after watching this guy for a few minutes, he proves that when you have lots of money, the decisions you make probably don't have much thought put into them.
In order to make a Powerwall really beneficial you need to be on Time-of-Use with your Utility. For example for me, from 2pm-8pm each day Mon-Fri is the highest charge for my electrical usage, 48cents. So earlier in the day my Powerwall's will charge from my Solar. Then from 2pm-8pm my house goes over to battery power and I all my solar goes to the grid which gets me the highest net-metering compensation.
@@AntonioMartinez-ic5xj You do know anything less dense than the fluid around it will float? You could cut that bord into three, four or seven pieces and all of them would float.
Thanks for the run down on how you use your setup. Personally all I need to cover is keeping a mini fridge operational during the occasional blackout (to keep temperature sensitive medication from spoiling) and cannot put any solar up where I live so my battery backup solution is considerably cheaper than yours but still grid reliant. I figure for the vast majority of my needs I can get away with around $1500 in battery generator cost which will give me enough to cover all but a multi day blackout which has only occurred twice in 20 years where I live. Lucky you to live where the power company doesn't gouge you on power prices - mine plays the summer multi tier game to squeeze more money out of us in "summer" and they're getting ready to play the smart meter shuffle and bend us over for more money at different times of the day or whenever the whim hits them that they need to compensate for increased demand all year round.
as a resident of the same city as them, its bizzare to see that we keep our a/c set to 80 to use less electricity, meanwhile this is happening close by
@@harshilpatel9643 80 degrees is cool haha. I also live in this same city and it’s very clear that this family isn’t from here. They are from up in northern Utah where 71 degrees is normal, but down here in southern Utah, 80 is normal room temperature for most of us who are from here. I actually keep my house at 82 degrees 24/7 during the summer.
@@DuAuskenner not really I mean yes they do contribute but also he has a large house with various luxurious amenities that need lots of power, from the app itself it looks like he has at least 4 air con systems, so many lights, pool equipment, probably other stuff not mentioned like home automation and servers, cameras. The hourly average usage of the day he used 256 KWh in is about 10.6 KWh which is a lot!
Battery technology is improving so quickly I feel like a new superior version of Powerwalls will be out within a few years. It would be awesome if they became more compact so you could attach one to a travel trailer.
I agree, if you don't live "out there" where the power goes out all the time, the powerwall is not that useful. It's better to get a bigger panel array for everyday use. The power you feed to the powergrid becomes your free battery (as long as they credit you fairly for it).
Except you don't need to be in the boonies for your power to shutoff periodically. For example, california does rolling blackouts during peak usage periods in the summer. Instances like this will only be more frequent as energy demands goes up.
So you've had 6 months of data and instead of using actual average daily use, you chose to plug in all 4 cars, Al the lights, all the AC.. basically the worst case scenario that would basically never occur. Weird.
@AniCraft0810 Well, I would say from the looks of it a house that has enough adult drivers that they would need more than one car and they choose to drive all electric. And if you've never had kids then I can see why you might ask that question but if you have had kids and if they're teenagers then you absolutely know All of the cars would need charging at the same time. With my 4 they would have been doing well just to GET TO a charger before their cars died if they treated their car anything like they treat their phones and everything else electronic that they have....LOL
@@cdratton that comes down to poor teaching/parenting then if they don’t look after and respect stuff. That’s pretty much your fault (and I have 3 kids - now adults).
$0.08 per kWh is insanely cheap. Here in sydney my peak rate is $.38/kWh and the feed-in tariff is $0.10. Here the economics of a powerwall make a lot more sense. Plus the battery helps smooth the duck curve problem where we have too much solar going into the grid in the mid afternoon and too little going in when demand is higher in the early evening.
1 Tesla powerwall battery(13.54kw) cost can get 8 units Orient Power wall mounted(40.96kw). Tesla use Japanese cylindrical cells, Orient Power use Chinese biggest Telecom brand customized aluminum squared cells. Tesla can not buy powerwall separately, but Orient Power is flexible and have warehouse in US... which one do you like?
50 kilowatts of power draw is like 421 amps of current. TIL that with some houses you can even draw that. (Electric company told me I have a 200 amp panel. And that is pushing it if you don't want to strain parts in the system like the transformer at the street/etc.)
4:15 How does it produce 0? If it rains, my 16 solar panels still produce like 2kW? I can see that there's clearly some light out there through the window... Really, I would let someone check out if your solar systems are working fine. I just checked my solar system, it's 21:15 in the evening ( 9:15 PM ) here in The Netherlands and it still produces 15 watt, that's about 1 watt a solar panel, but it's a lot darker here then what I see through your window and you got a lot more solar panels. 10:20 6 cents per kWh? I pay 21 eurocent a kWh at my home in The Netherlands... For 6 cents it's allmost useless to buy solar panels too?! At least from a financial standpoint, unless you're really patiënt. Just wondering, your entire household only has 2 drivers licenses right? And the cars I see have no autopilot right? Why do you have like 4 or even more cars? Around 4:25 -4:55 I see that you are using around 6,5kW at normal conditions, which I think is still very very high, but then I'm not used to a house this size. If you have a power outage you would ofcourse be crazy to charge 3 electric cars and put all of your airco on full power lol, so that's not really fair either. In my house in The Netherlands I can't even use 51kW, it's limited to around 17kW. In The Netherlands we use an electric heat pump, which is essentially both a heater as well as an airco which spreads it's temperature through the floor, also it's like 600% efficiënt, yes really. Somehow to rebuild your house creating underfloor heating is a really hard and expensive thing to do if you do it afterwards. It might somehow be more easy to heat up your swimming pool that way, or cool down your garage relatively efficiënt. It basically works similar as your airco, somehow it doesn't use the air, it uses water from deep under the ground. A heat pump essentially grabs water and splits it up in hot water and cold water after it did that, it uses the hot water to warm things up (your bath or shower or...) and the cold water to cool things down (your garage or ...) the water with the temperature it doesn't need, it simply pumps back in the ground. A heatpump will struggle with extreme temperatures, it can not heat water up till 100 degrees celcius and it can not cool water down to under 0 degree celcius, also, it does need start water above 0 degrees celcius to start with (so no ice), that's the reason why they usuall dig a hole deep under the ground, because deep under the ground it's allways above 0 and the ground doesn't suffer of a cold winter or hot summer, it keeps it's temperature around 17 degrees celcius or so.
This is an eco new build. No idea why they didn't put in a heat pump... But maybe it is to do with 6c per kwh! Crazy cheap electricity. I'm in the UK I think we pay about 20c per kwh. We have a big house with maxed out solar panels. Currently we are getting paid nothing for solar we produce. We have been waiting for a powerwall for nearly a year. We have a gas boiler that runs the heating underfloor, no air con or heat pump, we insulated every wall and floor and roof before we moved in. Hopefully we will get. Heat pump in a few years time when they make financial sense in the UK. The house uses less than 1kw at peak power. Unless we have the steam room on or our car charging.
I appreciate your honesty and showing the actual usage of the cars and house. Seeing what each cars charging rate the question that comes to mind is, what is the associates cost of charging each car vs the cost is buying solar? At the current cost of fuel things are different but what was it when gas was $2.50/gal.? Our electric company charges about $0.0625 / KWH BUT! With taxes and other fees it works out to $0.125 / KWH. As little as we drive (~50-75 miles/week) and the cost of a Tesla I don’t see the ROI at this point. This does not account for miles you can travel on 1 charge and associated travel time required for these trips that would include charging stops vs gas cost and fill ups. Not including battery replacement vs engine replacement down the road. Just some thoughts. I’m not convinced yet electric is the way to go.
that's still darn cheap compared to uk/eu prices. electricity now in the uk is about 35p-40/kwh (and between 7-15p at night) take into account exchange rates and tht's nearly $0.50/kwh!!! batteries like this make a lot of sense if you can charge on the cheap rate at night and use that+solar during the day. you are also lucky in the USA to have so much space, your houses are huge compared to the typical eurpoean home. Actually in europe there's a lot of people live in apartments all over,not just the big cities.
I looked out the powerwall and it would take me 17 years to break even. From the price they are going for now, for me it it was not worth it. Its a nice product and if lived in a place that had more severe weather occurrences or places that have really bad infrastructure like TX, I would go for it.
40%....that's scam. I can imagine 100% means that the power supplying company is paying for the maintenance themselves, maybe even 80% is not profitable for them, but already 60% sounds a bit strange, and 40%? That's ridiculous
In The Netherlands we pay 21 eurocents a kWh. From that 21 eurocent a kWh, about 16 cents is tax. In The Netherlands they force you to pay more tax a kWh of electricity then for a kWh of petrol/diesel, luckely electric cars are 90+% efficient, while petrol/diesel cars re only like 25% efficiënt, because of that, it's still cheaper to drive electric. Either way, it's different each contract, but as far as I know, they mostly only pay money back for the electricity, you still do not get tax money back. I even heard about plan to compare whatever you deliver to the price electricity if currently worth, at some moments, electricity is worth a negative price according to them, if you give electricity back to the grid, while they claim electricity currently got a negative price, you essentially have to pay them to get rid of the electricity your solar panels just generated.
Here in Melbourne Australia we pay about 25c/kWh from the grid (give or take peak or off peak) but our feed in rate just dropped to 6. I couldn’t imagine the cost of running Dan’s house here, where there is plenty of sun… $60 a day and approx $23k a year?!
@@knightwolf3511 honda transmission are almost always ded by 220k miles… tesla batteries are still 85% at that age. Most ppl wont replace a transmission in an economy car, only a collectible one.
Very good point that it depends on your situation, especially the cost of power. We pay $0.21 kWh off peak, $0.43 on-peak (M-F 4-9 PM). We have 2 power walls and a solar roof. The Powerwall are recharged from solar each morning, and we push solar to the grid from about 12PM-7PM in the summer. We get paid about $5/day for that power. More importantly, the Powerwalls let us not use power from the grid most days. This has reduced our summertime bills from $400/mo to $20/mo. Also important is that the Powerwalls have let us continue working and living our lives on a couple of multi-day power outages. With just solar and no batteries when the grid goes out you lose power even with solar panels. So you end up staring up at your solar panels and the bright sun as you sit in your unpowered house getting more and more upset by the minute.
@@stephensmith777 - I am in California. Those rates are the summer rates July-October when everyone flips on the A/C. The rest of the year they drop to $0.091 off-peak and $0.118 on-peak. Fortunately for us, during the summer period, the solar makes enough electricity to power the house with A/C running and still change the batteries to 100%. We can go most of the summer rate period never pulling electricity from the grid, and selling the excess solar generation back to the grid. BTW, is Virginia power reliable these days? When I lived there we lost power every summer afternoon when the thunderstorms rolled through.
@@stephensmith777 I don't think so. I'm in SoCal and have to pay 25¢/Kwh off peak and about 50¢/Kwh on peak. It is getting more and more ridiculous. Every month we get a notice of another rate increase request. And if you send power back to the grid form your solar panels you only get 2¢/Kwh back!
@@JBoy340a California is a big state so I guess you must be from up north. Here in the LA area we are beholden to SCE. I just checked my past bills. The off peak rate for Oct '21 thru Feb '22 was 10% higher than last June's. My latest bill, Mar '22, added another 10% to about 30¢/Kwh. On peak is about double the off peak rates. [It would be cheaper to get power from a Tesla supercharger!] Oct thru Mar seems like the definition of winter to me.
Just for reference, our Off-Grid home is 3400 finished sqft with 15.36kW of solar panels and we've never used over 5.5kW to the house at any given time. This is even when th AC or Heat Pump is on. Living Off-Grid is very doable.
I do that to my smartphone. 80% top until it reaches 30% then back to 80%. The batteries are still at 90% of total useful life after more than 2 years of usage.
just check how much electricity consumer per day in figure kw then buy solar panel only don't buy battery run your house on the days on solar and night run o grid
Two power walls is underrated for a house that size and power consumption. That house would need like at least 4+ power walls. Im surprised he didn't do the math and research beforehand. Still another great video though!
If he uses a max of 51 kw, and he wants to power all that from the power walls, and they can only produce about 5 kw each, then he needs ten of them -simple math. Figure out what your max sustained power usage is that you want to supply, and how much max sustained power output you can get per unit, and do the math.
I can’t believe how much he got wrong on the powerwall math. His own utility said they are cutting his net metering 20% and then again another 20%, powerwalls are a 10-20 years investment and with the changes the powerwalls become more valuable. Also, you ignored the VPP feature, that’s paying powerwall owners $1000’s a year while reducing peaker plant pollution
@@olemissjim - the Tesla VPP beta feature in California is paying owners $0.00. Yep, they want the power in your Powerwalls for free. I did not sign up.
This is why bi-directional charging in Teslas needs to happen, like yesterday. The main reason why most have them is for emergencies. Having basically a Powerwall at the ready per EV defeats the purpose of having a sperate Powerwall. And doing this either via a software or physical update on future models INSTANTLY adds that 10K value into the cars. I actually can't wait to get solar on my house, but this has been a big sticking point for me in planning my build and future EV purchase. I have a Cybertruck reserved, but the fact the Ford Lightning already has this feature has me glaring at Tesla hoping they do the same.
I'm waiting to at least see what the Cybertruck 240V puts out, that can be my energy for up to a week or longer if the power is out! We know the Cybertruck will have 120/240V outputs just don't know how much yet!
@Paul Taylor Danng, you so smart, you know how bad a vehicle is before it exists! I bet you do well with investments and life in general lol. Strong understanding of how EVs charge and our future of electricity!
You may have mixed up kW and kWh a few times but all in all it seems like you've got a decent handle on your batteries, solar, and the grid all interact with each other. Kudos to you for admitting your mistakes.
I remember wanting a couple Powerwalls so bad before I got solar, but then did more research. Instead a got a Sol-Ark 12k inverter with a $3000 10,000 kWh (200A) 48v LifePO4 battery I bought off eBay. It’ll run my critical loads panel for 16-20 hours on a full charge! In a few years, God willing, I’ll upgrade to a new battery to possibly go off grid completely (depending on how well battery tech improves over the next 3-5 years).
Although you can't go nuts building a huge solar array and expect to bill-back a huge amount - the power company can refuse 'overbuilt' arrays. I like natural gas for a backup generator on just essential circuits.
I'm sure you know, but lithium ion battery life is GREATLY extended if you do not charge it above 90% and preferably 80%. I know this reduces stored capacity, but you have two and seem very conscious of getting maximum life from the power wall batteries.
Just a guess, but like the Tesla cars that gained range via software unlock, the powerwall batteries are not charged to 100% even if the software says 100%. In other words, the charge level is most likely already managed for you to extend the battery life.
Your house looks amazing. Many of us would probably aspire to this. But I can’t help noticing though just how much energy your home / workplace is using . Even with solar PV and battery storage. Surely there has got to be a more low carbon way for our wealthiest of citizens to live.
You've got to be kidding me. For him, the wife and say, 2 kids, that's a WAY oversized house. If the house used, at max, like 15-20 kW(in the UK, the average house has a 23 kW capacity), then I'd have understood. But 51? Preposterous.
Thx for this interesting video. In Germany, we pay about 30ct/kwh(EURO Cent!), but we only get about 9ct/kwh when we put energy into the grid. So, the powerwall make a kind of sense. But my main wish is, to use the Power from our Tesla.
The exchange rate with US cents right now is about 1.2 US cents to 1 Euro cent. Our rate is based on usage. At lower usage rates, it is 24 US cents per kwh and 34 cents at higher usage rates. That is high for the US, where the average rate is 14 cents per kwh.
With German prices for electricity - roughly 0.30€ per kWh - it takes around 6 to 7 years to recoup the initial investment in PV. It's close to impossible to recoup battery storage though, especially when you're so far from autarky as you are. Battery storage becomes interesting when you feed a lot of electricity into the grid, where they pay you some 0.08€ per kWh.
Not true for all. Find a tariff that's cheaper at night. eg. in the UK. Octopus are 5p at night, 15p during the day. Then having battery storage makes sense. Not only can you store solar what you generate during the day (to use at night / in peak demand times) but you can also buy it at night and use it during the day. So-called grid-arbitrage. So each combine to save me £2-3/day. £1000/ year. So the £4k I spent on a Alpha ESS with 9kWh of storage will pay for itself in 4 years. We have enough storage to run the house at night so it's 10-30% by next morning Spring-Autumn.
$16,000 for a battery pack, or $600 for 4-5 UPS that will power what u NEED for 10-15 minutes. Or a generator. Literally anything else id better it seems.
I have Tesla solar and 2 power walls too. And I’ve had it for about 6 months and personally I like it because the solar runs the house during the day and the PW runs the house at night so the most my power bill since getting them has been $15, and I live in Florida so we get a lot of heavy storms and hurricanes so I think I made the right purchase
As a complex systems engineer it amazes me how proud he is while saying they "only drive electric" ..you should have bought just one and saved the rest for a specialized degree maybe Experimental Physics.. so you knew for sure you are part of the problem.. not the solution.
Power wall is just an emergency when the power goes completely out. So, it can run things like your refrigerator, if you have a fishpond to run a pump for running water to keep your fish alive and run needed appliances so you be able to cook etc. For running the A/C for the house and charging three EV cars, I don't think it smart to run it on just two power wall units you will need a bunch.
agree 100%,it's there as a backup precisely to keep food perserved/cool/fresh(or medicines requiring cool storage), and give you lights . the ideal would obviously be some mini reactor that sits in the corner where your gas boiler used to be that stays on for 50 years,but the power companies would never allow that as they'd lose too much money!
When you install a backup generator or a battery system, in most cases you won’t be able to power everything at once. So, you set up a “load shedding” system, where only the circuits that are brought back to that special box will actually get powered when the Transfer Switch is thrown. That Transfer Switch is the kind of thing you’re talking about.
If you have the place wired up circuit wise it is possible to have things run on battery while other things that aren't would just lose power when the power grid goes off but that is just my thoughts
Matt Ferrell recently did a video on the Snap Smart Home Electrical Panel that helps you solve these kinds of problems via automation, see th-cam.com/video/CQWehDQ9_uQ/w-d-xo.html
imagine that it is theoretically possible to use the batteries in your electric cars to power the electrics of the whole house. I don't understand why Elan didn't make this feature. You have a very beautiful house. Good luck to you.
6 c/kWh? Wow that's so cheap! In Australia we are paying over 30 c/kWh and solar feed in rates are only 20% of that. Only paying 6c really makes it a hard sell for solar systems, the savings just aren't there.
Now fast forward to these days 2 years later, and here in South Australia, we pay about 50c/kWh and feed in rates have dropped to 3c/kWh for most people! A powerwall for me is a huge money saver!
Where I live the utility company is remarkably stable, efficient, and consistent. In the 20 years I've lived in my home I can recall 1-3 outages at most, lasting 1-2 hours. As such, the current price of $12,000 for a giant battery just doesn't make sense. It more than doubles my cost without an actual return on the investment. Thanks for this really good review!
I think the opportunity lies in getting power back from your EVs in case of emergencies. That's gonna act like a back-up as well as reduce up front cost
You can put as many solar panels as you want, and you will be producing more than you will use. But if the panels no longer produce energy due to the conditions, without a battery pack, you won't have any energy coming into the house, except from the grid. So if the grid is down, and you don't have a back-up battery, your stuffed... Do you have another back-up battery pack, or are you reliant on the Tesla Power walls... ?
I think he's mostly right, especially how they're using them, and I think in particular the Tesla power walls are premium systems that function well but also cost a lot. I think there are more cost-effective battery systems, especially if it's possible to use the energy arbitrage. I was watching a video about how in Some states there is a pilot program for the grid to draw off the battery rather than using peaker plants, That seems worthwhile, because they were receiving a higher rate for that battery energy.
My emergency supply is ONE 1.300 kwh battery and a 1000 watt inverter. Under $200. Good for 5 hours continuous refr and freezer. LED lites, gas heat.. After that, my 1.5 liter fuel injected car gets the inverter and runs at idle 12 hours.
I live in central Europe. Here the cost of electricity is 20 cent/kW. For the electricity pushed back to the grid they pay to me 4 !!! I generate a lot more electricity than I consume, so I have a roughly neutral economical ballance and I feel good about lowering my carbon footprint. But I consider a battery backup system anyway just because they are pissing me off.
So if you live in a gigantic house with four electric cars, no regulations on the number of solar panels you can have, and 6 cents per KW electric grid costs, the Powerwall makes no economic sense.
I'm glad this guy is into solar power and electric cars because his carbon footprint is huge. If everybody lived like this the planet would collapse in 2 days.
@@doingtime20 In almost every way, from the construction of batteries, how they are charged and so much more. Very easy to look this up. I love solar but it is not what most people believe it is. There is almost nothing green about it.
Curious on your thoughts of the new electric F-150 ability to feed to a house in times of power outage. That would be a much larger battery (100+ KWh).
kWh, not kW, in your intended context. Also, I agree. I made a comment on a video once (not on this channel) about a year or two ago and I can't find it again (I might have deleted it.) that mentioned that a 100 kWh Tesla battery could store as much energy as almost eight Powerwalls.
Perth, Western Australia. Cost .2933 AUD (0.21 USD) Per KW unit . Power company buying back at .0275 AUD (0.02 USD) I think the battery might save some money but the time frame could be the life of the unit.
Oh, really? Let‘s say I throw away half of the food I buy every month. According to your statement, as long as this is a part of my lifestyle, Nobody had the right to criticize me and this wasteful behaviour would be all right with you?!
@@Fe2lx No idea what your example has to do with anything but to answer your question: If its YOUR food that you bought with YOUR money (or grew yourself), you can damn well do with it whatever you want and its none of my business.
Have you thought about installing geothermal system as opposed to additional solar panels? My problem with solar panels are subject to hail and weathered damages while geothermal is not.
This is what I always thought about the power wall. Batteries are still too expensive for solar systems considering that they'll degrade and require to be changed.
Well in Australia, Average return to offset cost of cheapest solar panels and battery is 10-12 years. Average rate per kWh is 28cents but buy back from company is 11 cents.
You are correct about the benefits of more solar vs more batteries. Batteries do not create or consume energy, they just store it. So whether you charge or discharge your batteries regularly or not, your energy consumption doesn’t change. IF you have time of use rates whereby you can sell your stored battery power at peak times and rates and recharge it at off-peak times and rates, you will make money in the “arbitrage”. Your battery capacity vs your load is too small even if you are not charging and cooling everything simultaneously. Your batteries are sized for short duration, frequent outages but if you had to ride out a prolonged outage, they would not help much.
Hey, solar power is great, but solar panels take up space, more material, and more money, where a self running generator would cost less, be more effectient and not be limited by the sun being around or not.
This video was full of surprises. 6 cents per kwh, I pay 11cents here in Nevada, and that is nothing when compared to crazy California at 23 cents regular, and 27/43 cents for solar customers. They certainly get ripped off by their corrupt regime. And I consume 0.3 kw at idle, 0.5 kw when the fridge kicks in. I did not know that it was possible to consume 52kw :) Great video.
Somewhere along the line you also have to figure in the cost of the Power Wall. I believe you said that you had 20 grand in the two units. That alone would take me years and years to recoup my money. I spend an average of $55. a month for electricity. At $600. a year for electricity. Well....you do the math. It would take years and years to recoup the cost of the equipment alone. Once I had a gentleman come out and give me an estimate on thermal windows. Estimated at 10 grand, I thought " Man I can buy an awful lot of gas and electric for 10 grand.
One factor regarding Powerwall that isn't being considered is the price of electricity inflation and we could in theory lock in pricing at this rate now (price of solar and wall). Currently in CA, the powers at be are not investing in natural gas production so now our natural gas prices have jumped. With our electricity produced by natural gas, I'm guessing that electric bill is going to jump as well. Currently in Summer months (June-Sept 30), peak electric pricing between 5pm-8pm is a whooping 0.327 / kWh (averages around 0.15 /kWh for all other times) while they buy back at 0.074 / kWh. So using power from the Powerwall would be much more beneficial than even selling back to the grid.
Can solar panels withstand a hail storm? Do you have to have solar panels to have a PW? I was just thinking about this topic yesterday when I was watching weather related prepping videos. What came to my mind was, if things are headed in the direction of electric, then how would you power your house if there where no gas generators. My answer it seems came in the form of a TH-cam video😄.
You are so lucky to have reliable utility company in your area. You will have a very different opinion if your house was in my country, South Africa, where the power from the utility goes off everyday for 2 hours at a time, sometimes twice a day. You will appreciate the powerwall when your house have power and the rest of the neighbourhood is in darkness.
in CA the cost is between 0.15-0.18 per kw. At .06/kw you are better off not having any solar until they either raise the rates or more efficient panels come out. A Generac(or other) 20kw standby generator might have been a better option.
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Your videos are always electrifying!
Hahaha
Hey 👋
Epic
ooo sorta early… kinda
@@WHATSINSIDEFAMILY Elon Tweeted early Roadsters have V2G, have you tried hooking that up? Rather put that big battery into use than just park it in garage.
The point of having battery backup isn’t to run everything at maximum capacity, it’s to keep the essentials running such as fridge and freezers. Not to charge all your electric cars and have the aircon and every light in the house on.
also since he still has his gas Honda, in case of power outage instead of using EV cars, use a gas car because ev needs to charge. you won't be able to do that at home without draining the 2 batteries super fast which can be used for the freezer.
He doesn't even need to turn on the lights, instead make just 1-3 rooms or everyone just use phones and turn up or turn off the ac units
Totaly
Yes but if everything is running when the power goes it will trip. If you know a cut is coming then you can reduce your usage before hand but that doesn't happen. All devices would have to talk to each other so they turn off gracefully and o ly keep essentials running. Is that currently possible? Obviously in the future I'm sure those kind of features would be added.
I think he just needs to pony up for 3 more power walls. 😅🤣😂😂
@@druiz012 and also Tesla is not the only house batterie manufacture, there is some better option
I finally understand why the powergrid in the USA is struggling 😂. This dude uses more power on his own than my whole street (in the EU) does, taking into account that I have 12 solar panels and still power left to deliver back to the grid (and yes we do have electric cars as well, guess our houses are just a tiny bit smaller 😂😅)
Indeed. I use around 256kWh a month, including charging one EV and excluding my PV. I actually produce almost twice as much electricity as I use. Batteries won’t make sense in my case either, because I get paid more per kWh for the electricity I put in the grid than the electricity I use, plus the PV is on a completely separate meter.
If you live in hot area you will know what it means to consume 100kwh in average daily. b/c everything is not working efficiently the AC and refrigerator will need more electricity just to work normally
And yet people think it’s a good idea to strain the power grid even more with electric vehicles 😂 I’m not an electric vehicle hater, but at the same time don’t force it down our throats. 90% of emissions come from outside the USA, John Kerry said that himself.
@@ilivedowntheroad 95,7% of all people live outside the USA…
@@ilivedowntheroad OK, so 10% of world emissions come from the US. Kinda alot, dontcha think?
15 minutes condensed to one sentence: Don't buy batteries for your solar system if your energy provider offers net metering (and you don't care about powere outages). But thank you for the cool video anyways!
If he didn't create this 15mins video to explain this to you, no way you can come up with your stupid-a** one sentence.
And don’t buy 27kw battery if your consumption is 50kwh at peak. It was really dumb. A 5 minute read of his electric bill should have given him some clues
@@chefgav1 He bought it basically the same time he moved into the house so they didn't really know their consumption. I mean he originally wanted Tesla Solar Roofs during construction.
@@chefgav1 he doesn't need battery at all... 1) he got paid by the utility company for feeding the grid, 2) the cost of a battery can be converted into more solar, which will give him more money.
@@yorha2b278 Dang man. You really took offense to his nonoffensive comment hahah
It's funny how at no point in this video you considered the alternative of consuming less energy.
I'm saying that because that's what we did in my house (we only have solar panels), we improved the isolation, changed every light bulbs to LEDs, changed appliances that were too power hungry and monitored our consumption. And guess what? It worked without changing our habits too much. Give it a try, it's worth it.
Studio office house
Well said! That's a true change 🖤
Then, once every person is living like this and consuming LESS power creating LESS demand... the price will shoot right back up, because the government guarantees all utilities the right to profit.
@@jeffklaubo3168 we’re not talking about the price of energy, being an American I suppose the dollar is the prism through which you understand the world around you. But I’m not, and what I’m talking about is reducing our energy consumption to make our stay on earth a less devastating affair than what we are currently doing. But yeah, money matters, but it won’t make our planet habitable.
@@pignonMZ6 what I'm saying is money is what makes the world go round. Currently with energy being distributed the way it is, no competition, there is no incentive to reduce consumption. There is more incentive to increase consumption than reduce it.
Example, There are 500 companies contributing power to the Eastern grid. 500. All of them share and operate on the same grid. You know how many options I have for power companies? 1. I have 1 option. There's no other choice, I have to put up with their bs, incompetence, and lack of caring. They have no incentive to do more or be better because I and the other people here have no choice except living a life without power (good luck), but then the government also guarantees them the right to make a profit. They operate on the worst parts of capitalism and socialism.
In reality laws of supply and demand would dictate as people use less energy it would become cheaper as there would be lower demand, when in Stark contrast to that as people use less, they raise their prices.
You want people to use less, allow the market to work.
Tesla needs to hire you. This was amazing knowledge even though it was 3 years ago. Thank you.
This video made me happy I don't own an unnecessarily big house.
I agree the only problem about his situation is the house the power wall would be great in a house shall the size
I agree. Kind of nuts.
Fr. Especially since it's in Utah of all places.
I have twice the square footage he has 20 times the land and it's not fun. Hopefully it will be gone soon. 👋
He's got a serious problem, unless he's got more than 6 family members at his house.
I think Powerwalls, despite them not being financially worth it, are super important. For one reason. Without powerwalls, your solar panels are worthless if the grid goes down. People think that solar panels alone can keep your house running during an outage. But you need the powerwalls to act as the "grid." To absorb excess energy and provide energy to the house.
I'm in the same boat as you. I get 1-1 credit for my net energy metering, and the electricity is rather cheap at about 10 cents per kWh. But I choose to get powerwalls for the peace of mind. However, I live in Florida so the chances of extended power outages are way higher here.
Also too, I have two Powerwalls and my house is only 1800 square feet and I have 1 Tesla. For you to truly be happy with Powerwalls and for it to be a full house backup solution, you would probably need like 6 at minimum. But if two isn't worth it to you, then 6 definitely wouldn't be.
Do you get 1:1 net metering with Duke Energy? I live in Florida too and I went with three powerwalls for a couple reasons. (1) standby power during outages (2) grid to battery during off peak less expensive times then use stored power to offset costs during peak more expensive times.
With Duke, I can sell back at wholesale prices which is the price Duke pays, not the price the sell to me.
Curious who your power company is....?
"Without powerwalls, your solar panels are worthless if the grid goes down" - People in the third world use $50 inverters hooked up to car batteries for that scenario, a Powerwall is like buying a Ferrari for the paper round.
@@revealingfacts4all FPL. Its 1:1 during the year on a month to month basis. at the end of the year they pay me via a bill credit at wholesale prices.
In NZ you get 3c kwhr and buy it for 25c
It's already been said but no, Powerwalls are not needed (in some and hopefully a LOT of future scenarios). I am driving around with a battery that can hold up to 4-5 days of power for my house (in the summertime when I use more electricity than in the winter). Why not utilize this in a power outage?
If you like to learn Dan, be careful at 9:21 you switched kW and kWh.
kW is a unit of power, so your house consumption is in kW (you can see that in your app)
kWh is a unit of stored energy, so your Powerwalls should be rated for this.
So one of you powerwall is 13.5kWh and is capable of an output of 5kW, that gives us, without loss 2.7 hours of usage out of them.
A little physic course for you ;)
hope he see it
I am nowhere near that part of the video, but it bugs the heck out of me when Tesla TH-camrs confuse kW and kWh.
I also heard that and it confused me a little bit...
Exactly. He is clearly clueless. Assumes that 2 power walls will be enough. Spending 5 minutes reading your electricity bill could have foreseen this pretty quickly
@@chefgav1 if you don't like his videos, don't watch them, it's that simple
I just got two Powerwalls and I'm really happy with them. I love not having to buy much electricity from the grid and being able to have full electricity when the grid shuts down.
But what would the main reason be that the grid goes down? more consumption and loading it, solar panels can only really power led lights and slowly charge ev's otherwise its all off the grid that runs from mainly burning fossil fuels in most states.
@@tyronenelson9124 The grid can go found for many reasons, like a blown transformer, over loaded, car accident hitting electrical equipment, fires, high winds, maintenance, intentionally shutting it off to prevent fires in high winds, etc.
Never seen this channel before. It popped up for some reason and after watching this guy for a few minutes, he proves that when you have lots of money, the decisions you make probably don't have much thought put into them.
Judgy
In order to make a Powerwall really beneficial you need to be on Time-of-Use with your Utility. For example for me, from 2pm-8pm each day Mon-Fri is the highest charge for my electrical usage, 48cents. So earlier in the day my Powerwall's will charge from my Solar. Then from 2pm-8pm my house goes over to battery power and I all my solar goes to the grid which gets me the highest net-metering compensation.
"This is half a tesla surfboard, I wonder if it still floats"
Why would it not
Because it was only half
@@AntonioMartinez-ic5xj You do know anything less dense than the fluid around it will float? You could cut that bord into three, four or seven pieces and all of them would float.
At first I thought it was a joke, but after watching the rest of the video I'm no longer surprised...
Because if you don’t test it by showing everyone that you also have a huge pool, then how will everyone know you have a huge pool?
I wonder if this foam will float was never said.
my 6 member family lives in a one-floor home very happy. we only have to pay about 30 dollars a month not a day.
Americans have crazy high electrical and gasoline uses.
He has the money and is living large. Most people living a minimalist lifestyle can do with a lot less.
Thanks for the run down on how you use your setup. Personally all I need to cover is keeping a mini fridge operational during the occasional blackout (to keep temperature sensitive medication from spoiling) and cannot put any solar up where I live so my battery backup solution is considerably cheaper than yours but still grid reliant. I figure for the vast majority of my needs I can get away with around $1500 in battery generator cost which will give me enough to cover all but a multi day blackout which has only occurred twice in 20 years where I live. Lucky you to live where the power company doesn't gouge you on power prices - mine plays the summer multi tier game to squeeze more money out of us in "summer" and they're getting ready to play the smart meter shuffle and bend us over for more money at different times of the day or whenever the whim hits them that they need to compensate for increased demand all year round.
as a resident of the same city as them, its bizzare to see that we keep our a/c set to 80 to use less electricity, meanwhile this is happening close by
Wait what how do you keep your house cool? Fans?
To be fair during the rainy days the load on the grid is low compared to the 125f days.
There's no way in hell I'm staying 80 degrees and being hot as hell.
@@harshilpatel9643 80 degrees is cool haha. I also live in this same city and it’s very clear that this family isn’t from here. They are from up in northern Utah where 71 degrees is normal, but down here in southern Utah, 80 is normal room temperature for most of us who are from here. I actually keep my house at 82 degrees 24/7 during the summer.
@@networth00 upstairs in my childhood home it was frequently upper 80s in my bedroom and 80 at night when I slept. Because we were cheap.
The power you use every day is twice as much as I use in a month. That's crazy insane
Same here. Totally nuts
Thats because of the cars
@@DuAuskenner Ofcourse, but who needs 4 cars in a family of 4?
@@aug.jam.1 casually having 12 cars
@@DuAuskenner not really I mean yes they do contribute but also he has a large house with various luxurious amenities that need lots of power, from the app itself it looks like he has at least 4 air con systems, so many lights, pool equipment, probably other stuff not mentioned like home automation and servers, cameras. The hourly average usage of the day he used 256 KWh in is about 10.6 KWh which is a lot!
Translation. My two powerwalls are not enough for my mansion with 3 EVs and AC everywhere.
Seriously, 6 AC? His house isn't that big.
Battery technology is improving so quickly I feel like a new superior version of Powerwalls will be out within a few years. It would be awesome if they became more compact so you could attach one to a travel trailer.
I believe Tesla already announced the creation of the next gen battery manufacturing plant
I agree, if you don't live "out there" where the power goes out all the time, the powerwall is not that useful. It's better to get a bigger panel array for everyday use. The power you feed to the powergrid becomes your free battery (as long as they credit you fairly for it).
Except you don't need to be in the boonies for your power to shutoff periodically. For example, california does rolling blackouts during peak usage periods in the summer. Instances like this will only be more frequent as energy demands goes up.
So you've had 6 months of data and instead of using actual average daily use, you chose to plug in all 4 cars, Al the lights, all the AC.. basically the worst case scenario that would basically never occur. Weird.
thats true, who would want to drive four cars at once?? and who would have four cars with low battery at the same time??!!
@@AniCraft-ls1nl a farmer with electric tractors and equipment.
@AniCraft0810 Well, I would say from the looks of it a house that has enough adult drivers that they would need more than one car and they choose to drive all electric. And if you've never had kids then I can see why you might ask that question but if you have had kids and if they're teenagers then you absolutely know All of the cars would need charging at the same time. With my 4 they would have been doing well just to GET TO a charger before their cars died if they treated their car anything like they treat their phones and everything else electronic that they have....LOL
@@cdratton that comes down to poor teaching/parenting then if they don’t look after and respect stuff. That’s pretty much your fault (and I have 3 kids - now adults).
@@AniCraft-ls1nl
That would be a sight to behold.... driving ycars at the Same time... 🙃 No longer impossible with "Autopilot". 😁
13:53 When your Tesla sounds like a Mustang starting up and driving off because of thunder in the distance, perfectly timed 😎
$0.08 per kWh is insanely cheap. Here in sydney my peak rate is $.38/kWh and the feed-in tariff is $0.10. Here the economics of a powerwall make a lot more sense. Plus the battery helps smooth the duck curve problem where we have too much solar going into the grid in the mid afternoon and too little going in when demand is higher in the early evening.
I don't even understand how solar panels could be profitable with that low cost....
1 Tesla powerwall battery(13.54kw) cost can get 8 units Orient Power wall mounted(40.96kw). Tesla use Japanese cylindrical cells, Orient Power use Chinese biggest Telecom brand customized aluminum squared cells. Tesla can not buy powerwall separately, but Orient Power is flexible and have warehouse in US... which one do you like?
Can we just take a step back and look at the consumption? So many kilowatts is just crazy for a 1 family house (+company).
He did take it to the extreme
All the lights
ACs and 3 EV Cars
@@twilliamspro yeah
50 kilowatts of power draw is like 421 amps of current. TIL that with some houses you can even draw that. (Electric company told me I have a 200 amp panel. And that is pushing it if you don't want to strain parts in the system like the transformer at the street/etc.)
@@strange-universe - I'm not sure that the state of Utah has enough room for panels to match their consumption.
@@freeheeler09 haha, it's been a bit since I watched and commented, but I immediately knew which video!
4:15 How does it produce 0? If it rains, my 16 solar panels still produce like 2kW? I can see that there's clearly some light out there through the window...
Really, I would let someone check out if your solar systems are working fine.
I just checked my solar system, it's 21:15 in the evening ( 9:15 PM ) here in The Netherlands and it still produces 15 watt, that's about 1 watt a solar panel, but it's a lot darker here then what I see through your window and you got a lot more solar panels.
10:20 6 cents per kWh? I pay 21 eurocent a kWh at my home in The Netherlands... For 6 cents it's allmost useless to buy solar panels too?! At least from a financial standpoint, unless you're really patiënt.
Just wondering, your entire household only has 2 drivers licenses right? And the cars I see have no autopilot right? Why do you have like 4 or even more cars?
Around 4:25 -4:55 I see that you are using around 6,5kW at normal conditions, which I think is still very very high, but then I'm not used to a house this size.
If you have a power outage you would ofcourse be crazy to charge 3 electric cars and put all of your airco on full power lol, so that's not really fair either.
In my house in The Netherlands I can't even use 51kW, it's limited to around 17kW.
In The Netherlands we use an electric heat pump, which is essentially both a heater as well as an airco which spreads it's temperature through the floor, also it's like 600% efficiënt, yes really.
Somehow to rebuild your house creating underfloor heating is a really hard and expensive thing to do if you do it afterwards. It might somehow be more easy to heat up your swimming pool that way, or cool down your garage relatively efficiënt. It basically works similar as your airco, somehow it doesn't use the air, it uses water from deep under the ground.
A heat pump essentially grabs water and splits it up in hot water and cold water after it did that, it uses the hot water to warm things up (your bath or shower or...) and the cold water to cool things down (your garage or ...) the water with the temperature it doesn't need, it simply pumps back in the ground. A heatpump will struggle with extreme temperatures, it can not heat water up till 100 degrees celcius and it can not cool water down to under 0 degree celcius, also, it does need start water above 0 degrees celcius to start with (so no ice), that's the reason why they usuall dig a hole deep under the ground, because deep under the ground it's allways above 0 and the ground doesn't suffer of a cold winter or hot summer, it keeps it's temperature around 17 degrees celcius or so.
The Technology Connections youtube channel made a series of videos about this during the beginning of the summer.
This is an eco new build. No idea why they didn't put in a heat pump... But maybe it is to do with 6c per kwh! Crazy cheap electricity. I'm in the UK I think we pay about 20c per kwh. We have a big house with maxed out solar panels. Currently we are getting paid nothing for solar we produce. We have been waiting for a powerwall for nearly a year. We have a gas boiler that runs the heating underfloor, no air con or heat pump, we insulated every wall and floor and roof before we moved in. Hopefully we will get. Heat pump in a few years time when they make financial sense in the UK. The house uses less than 1kw at peak power. Unless we have the steam room on or our car charging.
Yeah…. I am amazed at how much power these people consume!
Also he should only use the battery for essentials and not 4 cars
Some power generators will auto shutoff if it gets below a certain limit. Supposedly they get damaged if they don't but idk.
The man with the family of tesla
I appreciate your honesty and showing the actual usage of the cars and house. Seeing what each cars charging rate the question that comes to mind is, what is the associates cost of charging each car vs the cost is buying solar?
At the current cost of fuel things are different but what was it when gas was $2.50/gal.?
Our electric company charges about $0.0625 / KWH BUT! With taxes and other fees it works out to $0.125 / KWH. As little as we drive (~50-75 miles/week) and the cost of a Tesla I don’t see the ROI at this point. This does not account for miles you can travel on 1 charge and associated travel time required for these trips that would include charging stops vs gas cost and fill ups. Not including battery replacement vs engine replacement down the road.
Just some thoughts. I’m not convinced yet electric is the way to go.
that's still darn cheap compared to uk/eu prices.
electricity now in the uk is about 35p-40/kwh (and between 7-15p at night)
take into account exchange rates and tht's nearly $0.50/kwh!!!
batteries like this make a lot of sense if you can charge on the cheap rate at night and use that+solar during the day.
you are also lucky in the USA to have so much space, your houses are huge compared to the typical eurpoean home.
Actually in europe there's a lot of people live in apartments all over,not just the big cities.
I looked out the powerwall and it would take me 17 years to break even. From the price they are going for now, for me it it was not worth it. Its a nice product and if lived in a place that had more severe weather occurrences or places that have really bad infrastructure like TX, I would go for it.
40%....that's scam. I can imagine 100% means that the power supplying company is paying for the maintenance themselves, maybe even 80% is not profitable for them, but already 60% sounds a bit strange, and 40%? That's ridiculous
LMAO here in the Bay Area in California we get %30 haha
Be lucky to get 20% in the uk
6 cents per kWh? I think we pay around 43 during peak hours (and like 12 off-peak)
In The Netherlands we pay 21 eurocents a kWh.
From that 21 eurocent a kWh, about 16 cents is tax.
In The Netherlands they force you to pay more tax a kWh of electricity then for a kWh of petrol/diesel, luckely electric cars are 90+% efficient, while petrol/diesel cars re only like 25% efficiënt, because of that, it's still cheaper to drive electric.
Either way, it's different each contract, but as far as I know, they mostly only pay money back for the electricity, you still do not get tax money back.
I even heard about plan to compare whatever you deliver to the price electricity if currently worth, at some moments, electricity is worth a negative price according to them, if you give electricity back to the grid, while they claim electricity currently got a negative price, you essentially have to pay them to get rid of the electricity your solar panels just generated.
Here in Melbourne Australia we pay about 25c/kWh from the grid (give or take peak or off peak) but our feed in rate just dropped to 6. I couldn’t imagine the cost of running Dan’s house here, where there is plenty of sun… $60 a day and approx $23k a year?!
"We drive full electric" 13:50 Honda: ah yes, i love being ignored
if it was a older Honda, that car will outlast all the other ones
i mean, looking at the other comments, ur "memes" ar standing out
@@knightwolf3511 honda transmission are almost always ded by 220k miles… tesla batteries are still 85% at that age. Most ppl wont replace a transmission in an economy car, only a collectible one.
Very good point that it depends on your situation, especially the cost of power. We pay $0.21 kWh off peak, $0.43 on-peak (M-F 4-9 PM). We have 2 power walls and a solar roof. The Powerwall are recharged from solar each morning, and we push solar to the grid from about 12PM-7PM in the summer. We get paid about $5/day for that power. More importantly, the Powerwalls let us not use power from the grid most days. This has reduced our summertime bills from $400/mo to $20/mo.
Also important is that the Powerwalls have let us continue working and living our lives on a couple of multi-day power outages. With just solar and no batteries when the grid goes out you lose power even with solar panels. So you end up staring up at your solar panels and the bright sun as you sit in your unpowered house getting more and more upset by the minute.
Wow, those are expensive rates! Ours, in Virginia, is $.11 kWh flat (any time). Are you in California?
@@stephensmith777 - I am in California. Those rates are the summer rates July-October when everyone flips on the A/C. The rest of the year they drop to $0.091 off-peak and $0.118 on-peak.
Fortunately for us, during the summer period, the solar makes enough electricity to power the house with A/C running and still change the batteries to 100%. We can go most of the summer rate period never pulling electricity from the grid, and selling the excess solar generation back to the grid.
BTW, is Virginia power reliable these days? When I lived there we lost power every summer afternoon when the thunderstorms rolled through.
@@JBoy340a how many kw does your system produce?
@@stephensmith777 I don't think so. I'm in SoCal and have to pay 25¢/Kwh off peak and about 50¢/Kwh on peak. It is getting more and more ridiculous. Every month we get a notice of another rate increase request. And if you send power back to the grid form your solar panels you only get 2¢/Kwh back!
@@JBoy340a California is a big state so I guess you must be from up north. Here in the LA area we are beholden to SCE. I just checked my past bills. The off peak rate for Oct '21 thru Feb '22 was 10% higher than last June's. My latest bill, Mar '22, added another 10% to about 30¢/Kwh. On peak is about double the off peak rates. [It would be cheaper to get power from a Tesla supercharger!] Oct thru Mar seems like the definition of winter to me.
Just for reference, our Off-Grid home is 3400 finished sqft with 15.36kW of solar panels and we've never used over 5.5kW to the house at any given time. This is even when th AC or Heat Pump is on. Living Off-Grid is very doable.
Impressive, in Italy i paid even 0.60 $ par Kw and they only give us back the 10% of what we put in the grid and solar is still super convenient
Letting the batteries sit at 100% is as bad as cycling them every day... go for 80-30% cycles or even less dod. or better let them sit at around 40% .
I do that to my smartphone. 80% top until it reaches 30% then back to 80%. The batteries are still at 90% of total useful life after more than 2 years of usage.
@@hectorfernando4445 jokes on you, I don’t give a f*** about charging, let it sit at 100% over night and after 2 years it’s at 95% (iPhone 11)
just check how much electricity consumer per day in figure kw then buy solar panel only don't buy battery run your house on the days on solar and night run o grid
Two power walls is underrated for a house that size and power consumption. That house would need like at least 4+ power walls. Im surprised he didn't do the math and research beforehand. Still another great video though!
ok mr smart guy how would u know this
When you have the money you just buy something without even looking up how to use it
@@fishfug math
@Greg Gaming Watch it again at 12:01, he literally admits it was his own fault and that it was not the best use of money (11:52).
If he uses a max of 51 kw, and he wants to power all that from the power walls, and they can only produce about 5 kw each, then he needs ten of them -simple math.
Figure out what your max sustained power usage is that you want to supply, and how much max sustained power output you can get per unit, and do the math.
This was a bit crazy to watch 😂 your life is not that of an average person. I can't even imagine using that much energy.
yes, I thought the same thing. But still the knowledge can be translated since he gives us details on how much power he is using.
My guy, in Germany we pay 0.45€ per KWh and get 0.08€ per KWh in return. Be happy with your 40%.
I feel like we've had this convo before :)
Tick = likes :)
bald tires + tesla ?
Dude that’s my last name what the heck
I can’t believe how much he got wrong on the powerwall math. His own utility said they are cutting his net metering 20% and then again another 20%, powerwalls are a 10-20 years investment and with the changes the powerwalls become more valuable. Also, you ignored the VPP feature, that’s paying powerwall owners $1000’s a year while reducing peaker plant pollution
@@olemissjim - the Tesla VPP beta feature in California is paying owners $0.00. Yep, they want the power in your Powerwalls for free. I did not sign up.
This is why bi-directional charging in Teslas needs to happen, like yesterday. The main reason why most have them is for emergencies. Having basically a Powerwall at the ready per EV defeats the purpose of having a sperate Powerwall. And doing this either via a software or physical update on future models INSTANTLY adds that 10K value into the cars.
I actually can't wait to get solar on my house, but this has been a big sticking point for me in planning my build and future EV purchase. I have a Cybertruck reserved, but the fact the Ford Lightning already has this feature has me glaring at Tesla hoping they do the same.
I'm waiting to at least see what the Cybertruck 240V puts out, that can be my energy for up to a week or longer if the power is out! We know the Cybertruck will have 120/240V outputs just don't know how much yet!
@Paul Taylor Danng, you so smart, you know how bad a vehicle is before it exists! I bet you do well with investments and life in general lol. Strong understanding of how EVs charge and our future of electricity!
Then you unplug the car to go somewhere and the whole house goes dark
You may have mixed up kW and kWh a few times but all in all it seems like you've got a decent handle on your batteries, solar, and the grid all interact with each other. Kudos to you for admitting your mistakes.
I remember wanting a couple Powerwalls so bad before I got solar, but then did more research. Instead a got a Sol-Ark 12k inverter with a $3000 10,000 kWh (200A) 48v LifePO4 battery I bought off eBay. It’ll run my critical loads panel for 16-20 hours on a full charge!
In a few years, God willing, I’ll upgrade to a new battery to possibly go off grid completely (depending on how well battery tech improves over the next 3-5 years).
Although you can't go nuts building a huge solar array and expect to bill-back a huge amount - the power company can refuse 'overbuilt' arrays. I like natural gas for a backup generator on just essential circuits.
I'm sure you know, but lithium ion battery life is GREATLY extended if you do not charge it above 90% and preferably 80%. I know this reduces stored capacity, but you have two and seem very conscious of getting maximum life from the power wall batteries.
Just a guess, but like the Tesla cars that gained range via software unlock, the powerwall batteries are not charged to 100% even if the software says 100%. In other words, the charge level is most likely already managed for you to extend the battery life.
Your house looks amazing. Many of us would probably aspire to this.
But I can’t help noticing though just how much energy your home / workplace is using . Even with solar PV and battery storage.
Surely there has got to be a more low carbon way for our wealthiest of citizens to live.
If he uses a clean supplier then the carbon shouldn't be an issue... But I agree thier usage is quite ridiculous.
You've got to be kidding me. For him, the wife and say, 2 kids, that's a WAY oversized house.
If the house used, at max, like 15-20 kW(in the UK, the average house has a 23 kW capacity), then I'd have understood. But 51? Preposterous.
Are you joking he doesn't even have a tree in his yard.
It's a disgusting McMansion
Seems like you have enough money to do whatever you want regardless of it being a good or bad idea
10:23 I just love that your electricity is nearly 6 times more expensive than the electricity in Germany
You're so extravagant, you need to rethink your energy usage and serve yourself as an example. lol
Sounds like you need more Powerwalls and Solar Panels
He will only need more powerwalls when the grid doesn't do 100% buyback
Exactly. His math was totally dumb. 1 roadster alone holds 200kwh
Bingo!
He doesn't even need solar, he's paying .06 per kWh.
Thx for this interesting video. In Germany, we pay about 30ct/kwh(EURO Cent!), but we only get about 9ct/kwh when we put energy into the grid. So, the powerwall make a kind of sense. But my main wish is, to use the Power from our Tesla.
The exchange rate with US cents right now is about 1.2 US cents to 1 Euro cent. Our rate is based on usage. At lower usage rates, it is 24 US cents per kwh and 34 cents at higher usage rates. That is high for the US, where the average rate is 14 cents per kwh.
With German prices for electricity - roughly 0.30€ per kWh - it takes around 6 to 7 years to recoup the initial investment in PV. It's close to impossible to recoup battery storage though, especially when you're so far from autarky as you are. Battery storage becomes interesting when you feed a lot of electricity into the grid, where they pay you some 0.08€ per kWh.
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Not true for all. Find a tariff that's cheaper at night. eg. in the UK. Octopus are 5p at night, 15p during the day. Then having battery storage makes sense. Not only can you store solar what you generate during the day (to use at night / in peak demand times) but you can also buy it at night and use it during the day. So-called grid-arbitrage. So each combine to save me £2-3/day. £1000/ year. So the £4k I spent on a Alpha ESS with 9kWh of storage will pay for itself in 4 years. We have enough storage to run the house at night so it's 10-30% by next morning Spring-Autumn.
$16,000 for a battery pack, or $600 for 4-5 UPS that will power what u NEED for 10-15 minutes. Or a generator. Literally anything else id better it seems.
Ya... as soon as I saw your roof I thought... why did he not install more panels. Great vid. Thanks.
I have Tesla solar and 2 power walls too. And I’ve had it for about 6 months and personally I like it because the solar runs the house during the day and the PW runs the house at night so the most my power bill since getting them has been $15, and I live in Florida so we get a lot of heavy storms and hurricanes so I think I made the right purchase
Exactly.
Hi Do you have the solar roof or the panels? Thanks.
@@newyou9914 I have the panels
@@johngreen1823 Thank you! I think I''d like those vs thr roof!
I love how I can see Zach`s statue in the background
As a complex systems engineer it amazes me how proud he is while saying they "only drive electric" ..you should have bought just one and saved the rest for a specialized degree maybe Experimental Physics.. so you knew for sure you are part of the problem.. not the solution.
How so? Not questioning the validity of what you're saying, just seeking honest clarification.
Power wall is just an emergency when the power goes completely out. So, it can run things like your refrigerator, if you have a fishpond to run a pump for running water to keep your fish alive and run needed appliances so you be able to cook etc. For running the A/C for the house and charging three EV cars, I don't think it smart to run it on just two power wall units you will need a bunch.
agree 100%,it's there as a backup precisely to keep food perserved/cool/fresh(or medicines requiring cool storage), and give you lights . the ideal would obviously be some mini reactor that sits in the corner where your gas boiler used to be that stays on for 50 years,but the power companies would never allow that as they'd lose too much money!
Agree, should plant some trees instead. So contraversary to see huge airco consumption while no plants make any shade that can save some energy. Hm
I wonder if you could setup somekind of "kill switch" that turns off everything but essentials when there is a power outage.
When you install a backup generator or a battery system, in most cases you won’t be able to power everything at once. So, you set up a “load shedding” system, where only the circuits that are brought back to that special box will actually get powered when the Transfer Switch is thrown.
That Transfer Switch is the kind of thing you’re talking about.
th-cam.com/video/CQWehDQ9_uQ/w-d-xo.html
If you have the place wired up circuit wise it is possible to have things run on battery while other things that aren't would just lose power when the power grid goes off but that is just my thoughts
Yes, you can do that very easily by having only particular circuits protected by your backup generator/batteries
Matt Ferrell recently did a video on the Snap Smart Home Electrical Panel that helps you solve these kinds of problems via automation, see th-cam.com/video/CQWehDQ9_uQ/w-d-xo.html
imagine that it is theoretically possible to use the batteries in your electric cars to power the electrics of the whole house. I don't understand why Elan didn't make this feature. You have a very beautiful house. Good luck to you.
Because that could leave you vulnerable when needed to evacuate in an emergency. Also transfer power is not that easy.
When are you gonna show us what Zach has put inside his statue
it's free art, i think he wants to keep it :D
They already did a video for that long back
@@shayanahmed7978 No?
6 c/kWh? Wow that's so cheap!
In Australia we are paying over 30 c/kWh and solar feed in rates are only 20% of that.
Only paying 6c really makes it a hard sell for solar systems, the savings just aren't there.
Now fast forward to these days 2 years later, and here in South Australia, we pay about 50c/kWh and feed in rates have dropped to 3c/kWh for most people! A powerwall for me is a huge money saver!
I kind of feel bad for subscribing. Like I’m supporting such a massive energy draw for this house.
Where I live the utility company is remarkably stable, efficient, and consistent. In the 20 years I've lived in my home I can recall 1-3 outages at most, lasting 1-2 hours. As such, the current price of $12,000 for a giant battery just doesn't make sense. It more than doubles my cost without an actual return on the investment. Thanks for this really good review!
I think the opportunity lies in getting power back from your EVs in case of emergencies.
That's gonna act like a back-up as well as reduce up front cost
Cant do that with Tesla. You can with the upcoming Ford Lightning Truck
You can put as many solar panels as you want, and you will be producing more than you will use. But if the panels no longer produce energy due to the conditions, without a battery pack, you won't have any energy coming into the house, except from the grid. So if the grid is down, and you don't have a back-up battery, your stuffed...
Do you have another back-up battery pack, or are you reliant on the Tesla Power walls... ?
Need a lot more solar panels if you plan to be off grid or even be close to being able to support yourself when the grid goes down
If a small amount of energy is produced, but continuous, it would build up energy all the time. So you'd constantly charge up no matter what.
Elon Musk really should sponsore a Tesla car for this family
No
Yes
Pretty sure he has complimentary (new version) Roadster commimg
I think he's mostly right, especially how they're using them, and I think in particular the Tesla power walls are premium systems that function well but also cost a lot. I think there are more cost-effective battery systems, especially if it's possible to use the energy arbitrage. I was watching a video about how in Some states there is a pilot program for the grid to draw off the battery rather than using peaker plants, That seems worthwhile, because they were receiving a higher rate for that battery energy.
My emergency supply is ONE 1.300 kwh battery and a 1000 watt inverter. Under $200.
Good for 5 hours continuous refr and freezer. LED lites, gas heat..
After that, my 1.5 liter fuel injected car gets the inverter and runs at idle 12 hours.
@@OrmondOtvos are you sure it's 1300 kWh? It's more likely to be like 13 kWh based the rest of your comment.
in Ca they are wanting to do just as you describe... and also tax us for having a battery. Screw that.
Even if the output is low, self running generators would keep running continuously. Not stop. And they wouldn't overheat or explode.
I live in central Europe.
Here the cost of electricity is 20 cent/kW. For the electricity pushed back to the grid they pay to me 4 !!!
I generate a lot more electricity than I consume, so I have a roughly neutral economical ballance and I feel good about lowering my carbon footprint. But I consider a battery backup system anyway just because they are pissing me off.
So if you live in a gigantic house with four electric cars, no regulations on the number of solar panels you can have, and 6 cents per KW electric grid costs, the Powerwall makes no economic sense.
Dan you've gotten really slim!
I'm glad this guy is into solar power and electric cars because his carbon footprint is huge. If everybody lived like this the planet would collapse in 2 days.
Solar is good, but electric cars are horrible for the environment.
@@paulnubreu6887 How so?
@@doingtime20 In almost every way, from the construction of batteries, how they are charged and so much more. Very easy to look this up. I love solar but it is not what most people believe it is. There is almost nothing green about it.
Curious on your thoughts of the new electric F-150 ability to feed to a house in times of power outage. That would be a much larger battery (100+ KWh).
kWh, not kW, in your intended context. Also, I agree. I made a comment on a video once (not on this channel) about a year or two ago and I can't find it again (I might have deleted it.) that mentioned that a 100 kWh Tesla battery could store as much energy as almost eight Powerwalls.
10 kw (TV 50 watt , Appliances 3.3 kw ) it will chew it in 10 hours
Six cents per kW?~ We are double in Florida. What the heck?!
Perth, Western Australia. Cost .2933 AUD (0.21 USD) Per KW unit . Power company buying back at .0275 AUD (0.02 USD)
I think the battery might save some money but the time frame could be the life of the unit.
This crazy amount of energy consumption (even without the cars) for one family really disgusts me. Pure decadence.
oh someone's sitting on a high horse...
Yupp, and they call themselves the What‘s Inside Family.
@@Fe2lx
I don't see them judging other people's lifestyles, so no....I was referring to you.
Oh, really? Let‘s say I throw away half of the food I buy every month. According to your statement, as long as this is a part of my lifestyle, Nobody had the right to criticize me and this wasteful behaviour would be all right with you?!
@@Fe2lx No idea what your example has to do with anything but to answer your question: If its YOUR food that you bought with YOUR money (or grew yourself), you can damn well do with it whatever you want and its none of my business.
Dan: Lightning Struck.
Me: A Flash Floud Is Keep Atacking Me.
Have you thought about installing geothermal system as opposed to additional solar panels? My problem with solar panels are subject to hail and weathered damages while geothermal is not.
6 cents per kWh???!!! Insane. Ours ranges from 30 cents to 85 cents.
I been in my house in cali for 20yrs…i only had 2 power outages for like 5 mins…anyways thanks a lot for your opinions…nice crib!
My uncle who already bought it after watching your installation video
👁️👄👁️
This is what I always thought about the power wall. Batteries are still too expensive for solar systems considering that they'll degrade and require to be changed.
Yep but nobody thinks of that though.
Pardon me for being so frank, but this 14:27 minute video could DEFINITELY have been done in under FIVE minutes!
So your power consumption is almost the same as a heavy machinery factory. I'm "shocked". Well, is the US.
Well in Australia, Average return to offset cost of cheapest solar panels and battery is 10-12 years. Average rate per kWh is 28cents but buy back from company is 11 cents.
Very informative. Thank you.
You are correct about the benefits of more solar vs more batteries. Batteries do not create or consume energy, they just store it. So whether you charge or discharge your batteries regularly or not, your energy consumption doesn’t change. IF you have time of use rates whereby you can sell your stored battery power at peak times and rates and recharge it at off-peak times and rates, you will make money in the “arbitrage”. Your battery capacity vs your load is too small even if you are not charging and cooling everything simultaneously. Your batteries are sized for short duration, frequent outages but if you had to ride out a prolonged outage, they would not help much.
Hey, solar power is great, but solar panels take up space, more material, and more money, where a self running generator would cost less, be more effectient and not be limited by the sun being around or not.
This was very interesting! Thanks
This video was full of surprises. 6 cents per kwh, I pay 11cents here in Nevada, and that is nothing when compared to crazy California at 23 cents regular, and 27/43 cents for solar customers. They certainly get ripped off by their corrupt regime. And I consume 0.3 kw at idle, 0.5 kw when the fridge kicks in. I did not know that it was possible to consume 52kw :) Great video.
Somewhere along the line you also have to figure in the cost of the Power Wall. I believe you said that you had 20 grand in the two units. That alone would take me years and years to recoup my money. I spend an average of $55. a month for electricity. At $600. a year for electricity. Well....you do the math. It would take years and years to recoup the cost of the equipment alone. Once I had a gentleman come out and give me an estimate on thermal windows. Estimated at 10 grand, I thought " Man I can buy an awful lot of gas and electric for 10 grand.
You use more power in one hour than my 2800 square foot home uses in a week.
One factor regarding Powerwall that isn't being considered is the price of electricity inflation and we could in theory lock in pricing at this rate now (price of solar and wall). Currently in CA, the powers at be are not investing in natural gas production so now our natural gas prices have jumped. With our electricity produced by natural gas, I'm guessing that electric bill is going to jump as well. Currently in Summer months (June-Sept 30), peak electric pricing between 5pm-8pm is a whooping 0.327 / kWh (averages around 0.15 /kWh for all other times) while they buy back at 0.074 / kWh. So using power from the Powerwall would be much more beneficial than even selling back to the grid.
Can solar panels withstand a hail storm?
Do you have to have solar panels to have a PW?
I was just thinking about this topic yesterday when I was watching weather related prepping videos. What came to my mind was, if things are headed in the direction of electric, then how would you power your house if there where no gas generators. My answer it seems came in the form of a TH-cam video😄.
You are so lucky to have reliable utility company in your area. You will have a very different opinion if your house was in my country, South Africa, where the power from the utility goes off everyday for 2 hours at a time, sometimes twice a day. You will appreciate the powerwall when your house have power and the rest of the neighbourhood is in darkness.
in CA the cost is between 0.15-0.18 per kw. At .06/kw you are better off not having any solar until they either raise the rates or more efficient panels come out. A Generac(or other) 20kw standby generator might have been a better option.