In March, 2017, Elon Musk made a bet guaranteeing the installation of 100+ MWH battery for Australia within 100 days of signing, or he would supply it for free. This would have cost Elon Musk over $50 million.
The 129-megawatt-hour battery was being built by Musk for South Australia, which generates a substantial percentage of its energy from wind power and it was just completed before the 100 days expired from the September contract signing.
The US uses about 11.2 billion kwh per day.
If there was sufficient battery storage to cover about 10 hours then solar could supply power during daylight hours and the 10 hours of storage would cover the dark hours.
5 billion kwh would be storage for energy shifting massive solar for the USA.
This would be about 38,800 times more than the South Australia facility.
At the $50 million fully installed price would scale to 1.94 trillion for complete power shifting for the USA.
The gigafactory will cost Tesla up to $5 billion to build. It will produce 35 GWh/yr in battery cells and 50 GWh/yr in battery packs. Expansion plans are targeting 105 GWh of annual capacity by 2020.
49 years of Gigafactory 2020 production levels would be 5000 GWh for energy shifting the USA.
There are 140 EV battery manufacturers in China and they are building battery capacity in order to claim a share of what will become a $240 billion global industry within the next 20 years.
Auto analysts like Bernstein, a Wall Street research and securities firm, are predicting that EVs will account for as much as 40% of global vehicle purchases in 20 years. Since almost 100 million vehicles are produced and sold globally, that means that the annual market for EVs will be 40 million, even if the total global vehicle build does not increase between now and then.
Battery cell manufacturing capacity has more than doubled to 125 GWh, and is projected to double again to over 250 GWh by 2020. Total cell production capacity will need to increase tenfold from 2020 to 2037, the equivalent of adding 60 new 50 GWh Gigafactories.
China is projected to grow from about 60% market share to 70% in 2020. If Tesla reaches 105 GWh by 2020 and some other battery makers are in Europe and Japan, then China could push to 350 GWh by 2020. The overall world battery production will more likely be 500 GWh per year in 2020.
Complete powergrid timeshifting would be possible by the end of the 2030s.
China and Tesla are beating targets from a few years ago in terms of batteries and solar cells.
The US needs to double down and guarantee a larger $10 billion per year market for utility electrical storage at $100 KWh or less.
This could accelerate decarbonization and would not pick the technology. The US needs to get competitive with matching China’s push for the future with solar, battery, electric car and transformed decarbonized grid. The fossil fuel era will have a fast sunset. Saudi Arabia knows it which is why it is some turmoil and is making bets on a non-fossil fuel tech city.
China has 2% of its car market with electric cars last month. The 66,000 EV in China last month is over four times the 15000 EV per month level of the USA. China could be at 4-5% EV by the end 2018.
China has over half the world solar panel production and over half of the world’s EV and 60% of the worlds battery production.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
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1.94 Tillion dollars, and that is only to decarbonise electricity. What about the greater amounts of energy used in transportation and production?
Also that 1.94 trillion of batteries will only last 20 years tops.
Plus that article forgot to add in the cost of transmission lines.