{"id":6912,"date":"2018-02-20T10:13:54","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T17:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virtuance.com\/?p=6912"},"modified":"2018-03-06T13:48:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T20:48:33","slug":"better-home-batteries-changing-sustainable-energy-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/blog\/better-home-batteries-changing-sustainable-energy-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Better home batteries are changing the sustainable energy game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n
Photo Via Tesla<\/h5>\n

As battery costs drop, sustainable residential and commercial power becomes a much better deal<\/h2>\n

By Patrick Sisson | Source: Curbed<\/a><\/h5>\n
\n

As the cost of solar and wind power\u00a0continues to drop,<\/a>\u00a0sustainable energy is in the middle of a\u00a0growth spurt<\/a>. And one of the technologies that may fuel the next phase of\u00a0sustainable power<\/a>\u00a0for homes, companies, and cities has nothing to do with turbines and rooftop installations. It\u2019s all about batteries.<\/p>\n

Consider the new\u00a0Pe\u00f1a Station Next<\/a>\u00a0project taking shape in Denver, a joint venture among local government, Xcel Energy, and Panasonic. This forthcoming 400-acre \u201csustainable small town\u201d will run on the energy coming from a large series of solar panels connected to a 1-megawatt, grid-connected battery. With this massive battery extending the usability of solar energy beyond daylight hours, this new development seeks to become independent of outside energy sources.<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a Station Next could be an early example of how the confluence of a new generation of energy generation and storage technology helps cut energy costs, and even help some homes and businesses go carbon-free. As analysts at McKinsey & Company\u00a0put it,<\/a>\u00a0energy storage is the next disruptive technology in the power sector, and may be a key to helping public and private players achieve their sustainability goals.<\/p>\n

Since touting the\u00a0Tesla Powerwall<\/a>\u00a0storage battery and\u00a0solar roof tiles<\/a>, Elon Musk has waxed eloquently about the possibility of everyday Americans generating and storing their own power. And Tesla is far from the only game in town. Rising electricity rates and better battery tech\u2014the cost of battery storage\u00a0<\/strong>has plummeted<\/a>\u00a0from $1,000 per kilowatt-hour to $230 between 2010 and 2016\u2014have make it more cost-effective for everyone to buy into alternative energy solutions. The company\u2019s\u00a0Gigafactory<\/a>\u00a0in Nevada will soon be eclipsed by an\u00a0even bigger<\/a>\u00a0battery plant in China.<\/p>\n

According to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from the Energy Storage Association, the first quarter of 2017 was the biggest quarter yet for the U.S. energy storage market, and due to extensive installations in California, the megawatt (MW) hours of storage deployments doubled last year. Even Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet is getting into the energy-storage game,\u00a0funding a moonshot<\/a>\u00a0looking at a novel way to store power.<\/p>\n

Part of the lure of plugging in is a direct result of the way we pay for electricity. Requesting power during peak hours costs more, especially as\u00a0rates rise<\/a>. If a factory or office can time-shift the demand\u2014drawing from the grid when power is cheap, and using the stored energy to when the rates are high\u2014it can really impact the bottom line.<\/p>\n

In Irvine, California, LBA Realty installed a 1.3-megawatt battery system, the largest in the U.S., inside its new 2.1 million-square-foot\u00a0Park Place<\/a>\u00a0mixed-use development. The system will save them $900,000 during its first year in operation. And Tesla plans to deliver the\u00a0world\u2019s largest lithium ion battery<\/a>\u00a0to South Australia this summer, part of a test to see if sustainable energy generation and battery storage can create a more stable, sustainable energy supply.<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo Via Tesla As battery costs drop, sustainable residential and commercial power becomes a much better deal By Patrick Sisson | Source: Curbed As the cost of solar and wind power\u00a0continues to drop,\u00a0sustainable energy is in the middle of a\u00a0growth spurt. And one of the technologies that may fuel the next phase of\u00a0sustainable power\u00a0for homes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14503,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14503"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6915,"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6912\/revisions\/6915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.virtuance.com\/member\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}