Adelaide dad’s $240,000 18-month Tesla Powerwall nightmare

[trobbins]

nctnico, synchronisation is one issue.  The aspect I was referring to related to the anti-islanding mechanism that is mandated for PV inverters - perhaps that is also what you were referring to ?

[nctnico]

nctnico, synchronisation is one issue.  The aspect I was referring to related to the anti-islanding mechanism that is mandated for PV inverters - perhaps that is also what you were referring to ?

That is another facet of problems related to having distributed generation. The anti-islanding feature is requires needing to check the grid for being there. But either this has to be fed in as a seperate signal, a signal modulated onto mains by the grid and/or a certain method (one that doesn't cause problems) has to be mandated. At this moment it looks like this issue is addressed in several ways which may not be optimal; improvements will need to be made.

[coppercone2]

a electric blacksmith or ceramic manufacturer can use that much power. Interesting to think about if you are making parts from boron nitride or special coatings etc. Or metal recycling. I think its feasible for someone to make DIY alloys in bulk so long they have the metallurgic laboratory. Perhaps someone is tired of being gouged on super alloys. 

[DenzilPenberthy]

This system looks like it would be pretty trivial to implement with a few Victron inverter/chargers ganged together that have the 'PowerAssist' feature. His usage on average is well well below his grid supply. If he needs 200A on occasion then the PowerAssist can be set to take 60A max from the grid and supplement it by drawing from batteries, then recharge batteries once demand drops and there is spare grid capacity (plus feed in to batteries from solar etc). Wouldn't cost anywhere near $240k for that.

[Siwastaja]

Ignoring monetary aspect, from technical point of view it is really not optimal to construct higher power system from small components when one bigger would do. It is like attaching 5 small trailers to a passenger car to move some stuff instead of renting mid size cargo truck.

True and false. It really depends. It is very very usual to parallel smaller power conversion modules. Even large ones are often internally constructed from smaller modules. Car analogies are nice, but in actual technology real technological details matter, near-zero switching impedance is hard to deal with, and smaller converters can utilize off-the-shelf components.

Too small, and you need too many, and it gets too expensive - but just the Right Size, and properly designed ground-up to be paralleled, and you can sell the optimum solution to everyone, in form of one product, which drives costs down compared to one massive product which remains niche and sold in small numbers.

A better car analogy: look at a large semi truck or trailer. Why do you think they have maybe 8 or 10 tires, even 12? Sometimes 4 on a single axis. Surely a car only needs one in each corner?

[james_s]

A better car analogy: look at a large semi truck or trailer. Why do you think they have maybe 8 or 10 tires, even 12? Sometimes 4 on a single axis. Surely a car only needs one in each corner?

Or engine cylinders. It's possible to make a very large single cylinder engine and in the past that was fairly common, but now typically when you need more power the solution is to increase the number of cylinders working on a common crankshaft.

[f4eru]

when you need more power the solution is to increase the number of cylinders

Yep, true, but that is largely obsolete now, as cars are quickly evolving from 4-cylinder power to 3-phase power  
Now that is real power !

[james_s]

Yep, true, but that is largely obsolete now, as cars are quickly evolving from 4-cylinder power to 3-phase power  
Now that is real power !

The same principal applies. Rather than one or even a few huge batteries, they use hundreds of small batteries and increase the number when more power or range is needed.

[Stray Electron]

  And Tesla is even using dual electric motors now.

      Big isn't always better.

[bidrohini]

Very sad. Sounds like there are so many hidden ifs and buts in Tesla's claim.