[AL]

Electricity is an on demand product, and to meet the demand utilities have to guess at the needs. If they guess right the power plants have their output utilized and there is no wasted power generation. But that is never the case. They produce far more energy than is consumed and the extra energy is wasted energy.

They have to meet demand so if they can level out their demand they benefit. We can benefit if a Tesla system is installed that instead of relying on solar energy and the associated capital cost, we can instead charge the batteries when demand AND ELECTRIC COSTS are low, such as at night off the grid. Then we can buy and store cheaper energy, and use it via the Tesla batteries when the cost of electric is greatest, such as during the day.

[glen]

“They produce far more energy than is consumed and the extra energy is wasted energy. “

Jon, I think you mean that they have more CAPACITY than is demanded and the additional capacity is “wasted”.

As an old power plant “worker” we had to meet demand. A power plant can not produce more than the demand.

It really does not change the argument… just a clarification.

[Archived]

No, I meant exactly what I said.

If the anticipated demand is XX KW hours and the market only needs less the energy to produce the anticipated demand is wasted. Admittedly as the demand approaches the anticipated levels there is an increase in energy consumed, but not proportional.

If you want an example you can see easily start up your 20KW generator to supply power to the outlets so you can shave.

[Archived]

Jon, your 20KW generator isn’t producing 20KW when you’re just running your electric razor. The generator is only producing the energy required by the razor. The generator has the ability to produce 20KW, but it will only do so when there is 20KW of load.

[Chas]

But it is still burning fuel, while not as much as under full load, it is using a disproportionate amount of energy to provide power when it is being underutilized. And that was my point.

[Corey]

The issue with this presentation by Tesla (from my personal view) is whether or not Tesla can actually do what they say they can do… and Wall Street analysts are VERY mixed on this guy’s credibility. You have to give Tesla credit… look at the progress to date…..but then look at the odds of success…… the answers seem to come so very easily for this fellow… he has Mr Market in the palm of his hand and is wringing every dollar out of it. ….It was recently estimated he needs about $1.5 billion to shore up his books and continue …his burn rate is extreme. (I am not certain but I believe it is somewhat below a quarter billion per quarter).. and as I understand, he has somewhat over $1.25 billion in cash and using up the store at an alarming rate… I do, however, believe he can raise money in the foreign markets… he has that promoter’s touch… and history shows he has a great story to tell…and he tells it well…

I would like to know who is overseeing Tesla’s Governance… if I were they, I would be extremely certain no material facts were intentionally omitted… when the guru goes unquestioned…. we get the Enrons of the world with which I am all too familiar.

We produce oil and natural gas and I am comfortable with the cost structure for the foreseeable future… particularly for natural gas….the basis behind that comfort is a huge thorn in the side of all of these potential programs…solar and wind…the only way for programs in the alternative energy realm to be assured long-term is two fold: 1.) the tremendous underwriting by our tax dollars must stay in place… (solar tax incentives go a way in 2016.) unless reinstituted…and 2.) the price of fossil fuels needs to be reasonably high…. I believe we get there…

Don’t know why I am so concerned about these products and the Tesla venture… but I can’t put the pieces together…

Pres

[Mike & Brigitte]

There is no doubt he is capable of producing a product. What I am not so sure of is if he can ever produce a product and make money at his selling price. If you are going to be a manufacturer it takes a substantial amount of discipline to produce a product efficiently enough to make a profit. I would bet he is shipping a satchel full of money with each car produced and he is hoping to get the volume up so he has the efficiencies of scale. Not going to happen, because as the demand increases he is going to find the real automobile manufacturers will jump in.

[Tim]

Products like the Tesla car and now the Tesla home batteries are encouraging. I’m sure that to market the car and develop the batteries, the Tesla folks have learned quite a bit about batteries and power storage that wasn’t known before. Whether the Tesla car survives and/or whether the Tesla home batteries will really come to market and is ultimately successful is open for debate. Only time will tell. I hope they are successful. I like progress. But I don’t own a Tesla car and don’t expect to buy a first generation Tesla house battery.

Now for my question that is a follow-up to a side thread going on here. If I run my Kohler 20KW diesel generator to power three or four Cruise-Airs, water heater, interior lights, microwave, etc. and use as much electricity as the generator will put out, then I’m getting everything out of the generator it was designed for.

But when I have only a few things drawing a light load from the inverters and the batteries get low, the generator will fire up on its own to recharge the batteries. If the non-battery recharge load is low, I suspect the strain on the generator to recharge the batteries is probably awfully low compared to the full capabilities of the generator.

How little of a generator could I get by with to only charge the batteries they get low? What I’m getting at, how much of the 20KW is “wasted” when all I need to do is recharge the house batteries? 90% of the potential? 60%? I suspect the battery charge component of the inverters doesn’t recharge the batteries with a “fire hose”, but as a modest, restrained rate.

[Corey]

In my coach I can adjust the inverters to charge at 30 amps at 110 volt but really they don’t ever go over 20 amps per leg so a 6-7K generator should be adequate.if you can adjust the amperage down to 15 per leg a 5K should do it with a little to spare.

[Corey]

Dick,

It is the load you impose on the generator as a percentage of its total capability. If you can recharge your batteries at 16 amps total, you are only using about 10% of the total capability of the generator.

I don’t have the real numbers, but if you only lightly load the generator your efficiency is very low. If it takes just 1 gallon per hour to run an unloaded generator and 2 gallons per hour to run a 100% loaded generator your cost per generated KWH is substantially lower as the load increases.

[Archived]

Jon, I must question the generator fuel use you stated. My experience shows about .5 gal pretty much loaded. Geo.

[gary]

I was just trying to make the point that even if there is no load it takes a certain amount of fuel just to keep the generator running, while loading it fully only adds a little more use of fuel.

To use another example our buses at idle use 1 to 2 gallons of fuel per hour. Those that are running to provide heat or AC that is a pretty big cost if the bus is not moving. Yet at highway speeds I burn 10 gallons per hour but during that hour I am recharging house and chassis batteries, moving 60 plus miles and keeping cool or warm as needed If we load up our generator, our bus engine or our power plants our efficiencies ramp way up. With respect to power plants if using Tesla house batteries and charging them when demand is low and using the battery power when the power plants are already loaded we as a nation could level the production and usage of electric and realize some serious gains in efficiency which translates into lower costs.

In my factories I paid for electric based on demand and usage. My greatest inrush of power was when big machines were started. So theoretically if at 7:00 every morning all machines were started at once the instantaneous demand was several times greater than my steady state power consumption. Imagine that demand across the country. The power generators had to have their generators on line in anticipation of that spike in consumption, and then by 7:05 the power consumption dropped down to more normal daytime levels so compare that to the cost to produce power in terms of energy for a heavily loaded system due to demand, and then to the cost of a lightly loaded system which is what the power companies have during light demand hours. I had to pay for the demand. My electric bills were based on KWH plus demand which was often 40% of my total bill.

The homeowner is not billed in that manner, but he is part of the problem. His energy use is greatest during the day when he is up and about, less when he is in bed. Reduce the rates during the hours between midnight and 6:00 AM and use those reduced rates to charge your electric car, house batteries, etc. and the loads get leveled at the power plant because people will change habits if it makes economic sense, and the power plants would have less demand loads and more steady predictable loads.

[Tim]

Thanks Jon. What you said about low genny load/low efficiency and high genny load/high genny efficiency is pretty much what I had concluded after thinking about it for a while.