Florida Supreme Court gives green light to solar initiative

 

 

Two solar proposals are competing for voters' approval in Florida.

 

By Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida

 

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on October 22, 2015 approved a proposed ballot initiative that seeks to expand the use of solar energy, moving the state one step closer to a fierce political battle next year.

 

Making clear they were not offering an opinion on the merits of the proposal, justices ruled 6-1 that the initiative, backed by a group called Floridians for Solar Choice, met legal standards to go before voters. The group now will have to submit 683,149 valid petition signatures by Feb. 1 to qualify for the November 2016 ballot — about 500,000 more than it had submitted as of Thursday morning.

 

"We are thrilled with the high court's ruling so that voters may have the opportunity to vote on removing a barrier that currently blocks Florida's families and businesses from greater energy choices through the power of the free market," Tory Perfetti, chairman of Floridians for Solar Choice, said in a prepared statement immediately after the Supreme Court decision. "People power is what will get us on the ballot, and we continue to gather thousands of signatures each week from Floridians eager for solar choice."

 

The proposed constitutional amendment, in part, would allow businesses to generate and sell up to two megawatts of solar power to customers on the same or neighboring properties. In doing so, it would largely shield the solar producers from state and local regulations.

 

The initiative has drawn opposition from a coalition including major electric utilities and has spawned a competing solar ballot proposal. That proposal, spearheaded by the group Consumers for Smart Solar, is awaiting a review by the Supreme Court.

 

Dick Batchelor, co-chairman of Consumers for Smart Solar, said it was "unfortunate" that justices approved the Floridians for Solar Choice proposal.

 

"We caution Florida voters about this disingenuous solar ballot measure that favors big out-of-state solar companies instead of Florida consumers,'' Batchelor said in a prepared statement. "We simply cannot allow this seriously flawed amendment to pass. This special interest amendment puts Florida consumers, and especially our seniors, at great risk of fraud and abuse."

 

The Supreme Court reviews proposed constitutional amendments to make sure they will not be confusing or deceptive to voters. That involves making sure proposed amendments deal with single subjects and that the ballot titles and summaries — the parts seen by most voters — are clearly worded.

 

The majority opinion, supported by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince, Charles Canady and James E.C. Perry, said the Floridians for Solar Choice proposal met the requirements.

 

"Without considering the merits of the measure, we find that the title and summary clearly and unambiguously inform the voter that the amendment will prevent government and electric utilities from imposing regulatory barriers to supplying local solar electricity up to two megawatts to customers at the same or contiguous property,'' the opinion said.

 

But Justice Ricky Polston dissented, arguing that the ballot summary is "confusing" and doesn't accurately describe the scope of the proposal.

 

In part, Polston wrote that the ballot summary "leads the voter to believe that this initiative is about someone who owns a small house or small business with a solar panel on the roof and wants to sell electricity on a small scale. However, according to the Florida Electric Cooperatives Association, a single local solar generating facility capable of generating two megawatts of electricity would span over 12 acres and could serve approximately 714 customers. The ballot summary does not provide notice to the voter that this proposed amendment provides for this scale of completely unregulated electricity generation."

 

With the court's majority approving the ballot proposal, however, the groups on both sides were clearly readying Thursday for a political fight.

 

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a key supporter of Floridians for Solar Choice, quickly took aim at "big monopoly utilities" that oppose the initiative.

 

"We fully expect more misleading attacks from the big electric utilities and their proxy front groups in their desperate attempt to limit customer choice,'' Smith said in a prepared statement.

 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-nsf-supreme-court-solar-20151022-story.html

 

 

 

 

 

These 14 Sleek Solar Homes Do More Than Produce Power

Fewer college teams built homes to compete in this year’s Solar Decathlon, but their gee-whiz features might offer a surprising glimpse of the future.

 

Reporters view the compact, stackable home designed and built by students at New York City College of Technology on October 7, 2015, at the U.S. Department of Energy's biennial Solar Decathlon in Irvine, California.

Photograph by Thomas Kelsey, U.S. Dept. of Energy

 

By Wendy Koch, National Geographic

PUBLISHED October 09, 2015

 

They’re not simply places to live. They charge cars, grow food, collect water, and generate electricity during blackouts. These Dwell-like beauties might just make those with bigger homes a bit envious.

 

The University at Buffalo home, for example, has an indoor greenhouse for growing food year-round. Orange County’s team features a vertical garden, surf shower and—for the boomerang generation—detached studio. To withstand storms like the tornado that flattened the nearby town of Joplin, Missouri’s Crowder College and Drury University use reinforced walls surrounded by an impact-resistant fence.

 

The homes offer smart windows, accordion doors, and movable walls. Plus, they can charge a car. “We’re going to hook it up and charge it with the power of the sun,” Steve Speights, an engineering student at California State University in Sacramento, says in a video about his team’s home, complete with carport.

 

Welcome to the Solar Decathlon 2015, a biennial U.S.-sponsored contest that began Thursday in Irvine, California. Collegiate teams from around the world compete to build the most attractive, affordable, and energy-efficient home. Via solar panels, the homes produce at least as much energy as they use. Via rainwater capture, they reuse water.

 

These small homes—1,000 square feet or less—go well beyond solar technology to showcase not only smart design but also innovative ways to address drought or extreme weather. Some are engineering marvels.

 

“It’s like the biggest jigsaw puzzle you’ve even seen,” Solar Decathlon director Richard King says of Clemson University’s home, made of thousands of pieces of flat-packed plywood that lock together like LEGO.

 

Despite its wow factor, this competition has a cloudy future. It's losing competitors at a time when the U.S. solar industry is booming and other countries—China, Colombia, and United Arab Emirates—are planning similar decathlons. Six of the initial 20 teams withdrew, including Stanford, Yale, and Vanderbilt. The result: This year’s event is the smallest since the Department of Energy launched the U.S. decathlon in 2002.

ship them in pieces, and reassemble them within days at the competition.

 

For more information on the competition and videos of the homes go to:  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/10/151009-14-Sleek-Solar-Homes-Do-More-Than-Produce-Power/

 

Triple-filtered, recycled greywater waters at hydroponic garden at the home of Missouri University of Science and Technology on October 6, 2105, at the Solar Decathlon in Irvine, California. 

Photograph by Thomas Kelsey/U.S. Department of Energy

 

A circular window inside the home built by students at the Missouri University of Science and Technology provides a unique view of the entry by the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, on October 5, 2015, at the U.S. Department of Energy's biennial Solar Decathlon in Irvine, California.

Photographby Thomas Kelsey, U.S. Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon

 

 

 

 

 

How to Make a Solar Oven

Learn how to make a solar oven that works beautifully, is built to last, and costs less than a purchased solar cooker.

By Eric Smith
October 2011 Web

 

 

The following is an excerpt from "DIY Solar Projects" by Eric Smith (Creative Publishing, 2011). 

Solar ovens are simple devices that capture heat from the sun with a reflective surface that's angled or curved towards a cooking pot. Because they can be easily made from cheap materials like scrap cardboard and tinfoil, they are widely used in areas of the world where trees and fossil fuel are scarce or expensive. Once made, they can be used to cook food and boil water in a reasonable amount of time for absolutely no cost.

There are dozens of possible designs; some angle the rays down into a small center area, while others focus the rays upward toward the underside of a pot, like a reversed magnifying glass. You can also buy portable solar ovens assembled from polished metal online—they're great equipment for camping. But if you're serious about integrating free fuel from the sun into your cooking, the plan below features a solar oven that works beautifully and is also built to last. Plus, you can build it for a fraction of the cost of a purchased solar cooker.

Depending on variables like location, ambient air temperature and the angle of the sun, a solar oven can reach temperatures above boiling (212° F). In ideal conditions, some types can reach 300° or more. This temperature range is high enough that you can safely cook any food, including meat. Cooking times are longer, but because the temperature is lower there's little danger of overcooking, and the food is delicious.

Solar Oven Types

Solar cookers can be made in a wide variety of designs. The main criteria is that they have a reflective side or sides that focus sunlight toward a heat-absorbing (usually black) pot or base.

Made from cardboard and aluminum foil, this solar cooker is still capable of heating food almost to boiling. Variations of this basic design are widely used in poor areas of the world that have abundant sunlight but limited fuel; their use helps preserve dwindling forests.

Solar Oven

There are numerous ways to make a solar cooker—one website devoted to the subject has dozens of photos of different types sent in by people from all around the world—and all of them seem to work reasonably well. We settled on this model mostly because we're carpenters and we like working with wood more than metal. Feel free to modify it as you wish.

The cooker is big enough to hold two medium-size pots. All the pieces are cut from one eight-foot-long 2 × 12 and a sheet of ¾" plywood. The cooker would work just as well with ¼" plywood, but we used ¾" because it made it simpler to screw the corners and edges together. The base is made from 1½"-thick lumber for ease of construction and for the insulation value of the thicker wood, but thinner material would also work.

The foil we used was a type recommended for durability and resistance to UV degradation by an independent research institute. Unfortunately, it was expensive, and if you're just starting out you may want to do a trial run with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Although foil looks a little dull, it actually reflects solar rays almost as well as specially polished mirrors.

Tools and Materials 

• Straightedge
• Circular saw
• Jigsaw or plunge router
• Tape measure
• Drill/driver with bits
• Speed square
• Stapler
• Eye and ear protection
• #8 countersink bit
• ¾" × 4 × 8-ft. BC or better plywood
• 2 × 12 × 8-ft. SPF SolaRefle× foil  or heavy-duty aluminum foil
• 1⅝ and 2½" deck screws
• Clear silicone caulk
• Contact cement, or white glue and brush, optional
• Mid-size black metal pot with glass top
• Wire rack
• ¼ × 17¼ × 17¼" tempered glass
• No-bore glass lid pulls (Rockler item no. 29132)
• ¼ × 2" hanger bolts with large fender washers and wingnuts

Cutting List 

Key	Number	Dimension	Part	Material
A	2	1½ × 11¼ × 19"	Base	SPF
B	2	1½ × 11¼ × 16"	Base	SPF
C	1	¾ × 19 × 19"	Bottom	Plywood
D	1	¾ × 10 × 17"	Adjustable Leg	Plywood
E	1	¾ × 20 × 33¾"	Back	Plywood
F	1	¾ × 10 × 25¼"	Front	Plywood
G	2	¾ × 20 × 31¼"	Sides	Plywood
H	1	¼ × 17¼ × 17¼"	Cover	Tempered Glass

Sun rays reflect off the foil sides and are concentrated at the base of the cooker, where they are absorbed by the black pot. The glass cover (or clear oven cooking bag) helps hold heat and moisture in the pot. The cooker should face the sun. Raise or lower the box depending on the time of year so that you catch the sun straight on. Shim the wire rack as needed to keep the pot level.

For the rest of the instructions, go to:  http://www.motherearthliving.com/diy-projects/how-to-make-a-solar-oven.aspx

 

 

 

Google’s new project could convince you to buy solar panels

 

by Napier Lopez

 

 

Google wants to make it easy for people to consider using solar power for their homes. Today it launched a tool called Project Sunroof, which uses Google Maps data to calculate your roof's solar energy potential.

 

Project Sunroof Introduction Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_BXf_h8tEes

 

It's a simple but clever system: using high resolution satellite imagery, Google measures your rooftop area to calculate how much you could benefit from solar energy.

It'll provide an estimate for the amount of sunlight your rooftop will have available per year, taking into account shade from trees and nearby buildings, as well as roof orientation and weather. You can also input your typical electricity bills to fine tune your results.

This information is then combined to calculate how much money you could save, and Google will link you to local solar providers.

It's a clever idea that could actually entice people who might have otherwise not been interested in solar energy. Carl Elkin, Engineering Lead, says he created the project to counter people who misguidedly believe that solar energy is too expensive, or that their rooftops don't get enough sunlight.

Project Sunroof takes away the complications and makes it easy to make this assessment quickly and at your own leisure, without needing to invest hours on an expert to come in and provide a price quote. The process takes about 10 seconds.

To try out the tool for yourself, simply enter your address on the Project Sunroof website. It currently only works in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno and Boston, but will expand to other regions "over the coming months."

http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/08/17/googles-new-project-could-convince-you-to-buy-solar-panels/

 

 

 

 

Why Wildlife is Cheering for the Clean Power Plan

8/3/2015 // By Jim Murphy

 

 

President Obama has taken a historic and ambitious step in the fight against carbon pollution that threatens wildlife. With the announcement of the finalized Clean Power Plan, the President has enacted the first ever rules designed to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Power plants comprise about 40% of the nation’s emissions.

The National Climate Assessment shows that wildlife and communities are already feeling the impacts of climate with rising seas, ocean acidification, heavier precipitation, changes in growing seasons, decreased cold and snow pack, increased incidence of pests, devastating wildfires and droughts, and other significant impacts. Photo by Mary Harvey

The plan is part of the President’s Climate Action Plan, and a key component of America’s commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by up to 28% by 2025. The plan sets achievable reduction targets for states to meet using three building blocks: efficiency improvements at existing coal plants, switching plants from coal to natural gas, and increasing renewable energy. States then have flexibility to tailor their own plans to meet their target.

 

An Improved Plan for Tackling Climate Change

The final rule has some noted improvements over a proposed rule issued last year. For one, the final rule has a more ambitious target for overall emissions reductions, set at 32% by 2030. Also, the EPA listened to the countless voices who called for more emphasis on renewable energy.

Building on the soaring growth of clean sources of energy like wind and solar, the final rule has incentives and goals that are projected to result in an increase in renewable power generation from 22% to 28%. This is extremely welcome news.

The EPA has also included changes to give states even more latitude in terms of achieving compliance by moving back the compliance date and allowing states more time if they have reliability concerns. But compliance should not be a problem as more than half of states are already on track to meet the proposed rule’s 2020 benchmarks for reducing carbon pollution, with 14 of those states on track to exceed those benchmarks.

We Need to Act to Protect Wildlife

These measures come none too soon. The first five months of 2015 were the hottest on record, on pace to surpass 2014’s record year. A recent study published in the journal Nature finds an increasingly visible link between global warming and extreme weather, with warmer temperatures adding fuel to superstorms like Sandy.

Climate change poses a direct threat to wildlife and communities. If carbon pollution continues unabated, scientists predict that higher temperatures will lead to extinction of 50% of species around the globe.

Here are four species that are cheering about the President’s Clean Power Plan:

Ducks

Mallards and other ducks stand to gain from the Clean Power Plan. Photo Credit: USFWS.

Nearly half of America’s ducks come from a region in the northern Great Plains and Canada called the Prairie Pothole region. This vast expanse, which covers the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana and three Canadian provinces, can contain up to six million shallow, often seasonal ponds that provide optimal breeding grounds for ducks.

Climate change will bringer warmer, dryer weather that will significantly reduce the number and quality of these breeding ponds. Without action, like the Clean Power Plan, duck hunters may soon be asking, “Where did all the ducks go?”

Brook Trout

Brook trout could be extinct in states like Virginia if global warming is not addressed. Photo Credit Flickr USFWS.

Brook trout, a favorite catch of anglers, inhabit only the clearest, coolest streams. In many places, these streams are at the upper most part of the watershed. As the climate warms, so do these streams. Increasingly, these streams are becoming too warm for brook trout have nowhere else to go.

For instance, in Virginia, where brook trout are the official state fish, recent climate modeling suggests brook trout could be gone from the state by mid-century. The Clean Power Plan is a big step in the right direction to ensuring brook trout will keep swimming in our streams.

Moose

Moose are already suffering significant declines likely due to climate change in several northern states. Photo by Mitchell Rothman.

Moose are America’s biggest and most recognizable ungulate. But moose are not well adapted for warm weather and are not found in places with extended periods above 82 degrees F.

Heat is already taking a toll on moose. In addition to heat stress, warming temperatures are allowing parasitic ticks to flourish, and tens of thousands of ticks can attach themselves to moose, literally sucking the life out of them. The results are high fatalities particularly in juvenile moose. In the last 25 years, one of Minnesota’s moose populations has plummeted from 4,000 to fewer than 100. Declines are also being seen in Maine and New Hampshire.

Without action like the Clean Power Plan, it is likely that moose populations will largely be driven out of the lower 48 states.

Loons

The Clean Power Plan will also reduce other harmful pollutants, like mercury, that are poisoning loons and other wildlife. Photo by Ronald Norman.

Currently, most states have fish advisories in place concerning thousands of water bodies because mercury from power plants have resulted in serious health risks associated with eating fish. Coal fired power plants are the source of over half of human introduced mercury into the environment.

While we can choose not to eat fish – a choice we shouldn’t have to make – wildlife can’t. Wildlife, like loons, that survive on fish in our lakes have no choice but to eat contaminated fish. A recent report found that 75% of loons in once pristine Adirondack lakes far from coal plants had mercury levels that posed high to moderate risks.

Mercury is so toxic, that 1/70^th of teaspoon to the make the fish in a 25 acre lake unsafe to eat. As the Clean Power Plan powers down mercury spewing coal and powers up renewables, EPA estimates that the Clean Power Plan will remove thousands of pounds of mercury from the environment. That’s good news for both people and loons who like to eat the fish they catch.

What’s Next?

Now it’s up to states to craft implementation plans to ensure the Clean Power Plan’s goals are realized. If states fail to act, the EPA will implement a federal plan on the state’s behalf. However, the plan is designed to make implementation easy for states. As National Wildlife Federation’s President and CEO Collin O’Mara explains:

The President has provided states with the flexibility necessary to achieve meaningful reductions in a way that unleashes American innovation to maximize benefits and strengthen the economy. From the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to California’s carbon trading system, state-based and regional limits on industrial carbon pollution are proven effective at both cutting pollution and creating jobs.

There’s still a lot of work to do. But the President has taken a huge step towards reducing carbon pollution and has set the stage for further national and international action to keep ducks, trout, moose and loons a thriving part of our children’s future.

Urge Congress to stand strong for wildlife and climate action!

---

from Wildlife Promise

http://blog.nwf.org/2015/08/why-wildlife-is-cheering-for-the-clean-power-plan/

 

 

 

 

San Fran's new EV chargers are solar-powered, and free!

(Hopefully this will catch on across the country!)

 

Charge Across Town is cutting carbon emissions with mobile charging. Just respect the two-hour limit.

Jim Motavalli

Apr 29, 2015

 

Charging a Chevy Volt on free electricity from one of Charge Across Town's free — and portable — solar chargers. (Photo: Charge Across Town)

The best place in the world to own an electric car is probably California, with a tie between San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. Well, the city by the bay just got a big boost from something new: free solar-powered EV charging.

 

A nonprofit called Charge Across Town (CAT), looking to reduce carbon emissions in the Bay Area, has launched its “Driving on Sunshine” campaign. The plan is to increase awareness of both electric cars and solar with free electrons from three portable Envision EV ARC stations that will be strategically placed through 2015 at nine heavily trafficked locations around the city. Right now you can find them in the Mission District, at the Embarcadero, and the Stonestown Galleria Mall.

 

Carlie Guilfoile beams at the opening of the Charge Across Town free solar stations. (Photo: Charge Across Town)

 

Freeloaders will have a two-hour charging limit, says Maureen Blanc, director of Charge Across Town. She told me that CAT is “going on trust” that people will disconnect after their allotted time. Two hours on a 240-volt Level II charger should provide enough juice for 10 to 15 “e-miles,” she said. It’s hoped that four to six cars per day can charge at the stations.

 

Envision’s ARC stations cost $45,000 each, but CAT is leasing them through a grant from the 11th Hour Project. After the experiment is over in 2016, they’ll find a permanent home at the locations that got the most traffic.

 

Charge's Maureen Blanc: "You'd be surprised" how many people still don't get it in EV-heavy San Francisco. (Photo: Charge Across Town)

 

One could ask, why San Francisco? The city is not exactly starved for EV charging, or for solar installations. Awareness of both technologies would seem to be high among residents. Visit the Plugshare app here, enter the city’s name, and you’ll see dozens, if not hundreds of public stations, many of them offering free electricity, in San Francisco. Is there a need?

 

“You’d be surprised,” Blanc told me. “A lot of people are still pretty unaware. There’s still a lot of questions here about moving from fossil fuels to electric cars.”

 

Also worth noting is that PG&E, which serves central and northern California, is poised to install roughly 25,000 EV chargers in the coverage area over the next five years. The hosts won’t pay a dime for them.

 

And, of course, you can argue that San Francisco is, well, where the cars are. There are more than 60,000 plug-in cars in PG&E’s service territory, 20 percent of all those in the country, so it’s unlikely that these three new solar-powered units will sit idle.

 

The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.

Read more: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/san-frans-new-ev-chargers-are-solar-powered-and-free#ixzz3ZvlwI1Nq

 

 

 

 

Tesla Home Battery is here!

This may be the future!  Prices would need to come down some and I’m sure efficiency would need to be improved.  That will happen as demand goes up!  At the end of this article, there’s a link that will take you to original blog and you can listen to a different version of the story. -- Gene

 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk Unveils Home Battery; Is $3,000 Cheap Enough?

May 01, 2015 2:05 PM ET

Bill Chappell

 

A photo released by Tesla shows its new Powerwall lithium-ion battery pack mounted on the wall (left) of a garage behind one of the company's electric cars. Tesla Energy

 

In an ambitious bid to move beyond the electric car market, Tesla has announced that it will start selling large batteries to let homeowners store electricity. The Powerwall home battery starts at $3,000.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the new batteries Thursday night, in a move that had been both highly anticipated and the subject of much speculation. With a sleek surface and a depth of only about 7 inches, the Powerwall can be mounted on a garage wall or another surface, indoors or outside. It's roughly 4 feet high and 3 feet wide.

Explaining the company's strategy of using solar power, Musk said: "We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky, called the sun. You don't have to do anything; it just works."

The unit is geared toward homeowners who want to do any combination of three things: store backup power, minimize peak-time use of utilities' electricity and get off the commercial power grid entirely.

The Powerwall is seen as having particular allure for people who have (or want) solar panels. The large battery could supply or supplement the energy a household requires when the sun's not out.

On its Powerwall website, Tesla says:

"The average home uses more electricity in the morning and evening than during the day when solar energy is plentiful. Without a home battery, excess solar energy is often sold to the power company and purchased back in the evening. This mismatch adds demand on power plants and increases carbon emissions."

Tesla is taking orders for the batteries now, Musk says, adding that the first deliveries will be made in three to four months.

In recent days, details of the new battery venture were the subject of speculation that ranged from Tesla's reinvention of itself as an energy company to the unit's cost to homeowners.

The Powerwall's price ranges from $3,000 for a 7 kilowatt-hour model and $3,500 for the 10 kwh version. Those prices don't include an AC-to-DC power inverter or installation, but they're still far lower than the $20,000 estimate that one analyst gave to NPR's Steve Henn in the days leading up to Tesla's announcement.

For a report on Friday's Morning Edition, Steve spoke to JB Straubel, Tesla's co-founder and chief technology officer, about the batteries that the company hopes will help revolutionize the electric grid. From Steve's story:

" 'It's amazing the electric grid can work as well as it does with no storage,' Straubel says.

"Think about it. There is no way to store electricity on the grid. If there's a surge in demand and you run an energy company, you have to fire up an extra power plant.

" 'It's an entire market for energy transaction that has no inventory and no buffer,' Straubel says. 'So every single thing is delivered instantaneously, just in time.'

"And that means there is an enormous amount of waste. So Tesla wants to sell its batteries to consumers, businesses, homeowners — even utilities."

Steve also spoke to battery skeptic Robert Bryce, an author and homeowner who said that for him, the batteries would have to be very cheap.

Forbes writer Christopher Helman says that with configurations that supply either 7 kwh or 10 kwh, "the implication is that a 10 kwh system could supply 1,000 watts of current to your home for 10 hours."

But after analyzing the costs and benefits of the system, Helman adds, "If you do not have a big enough solar system to get your home entirely off the grid, then there is simply no point whatsoever in paying 30 cents per kwh to get electricity via the Powerwall."

It remains to be seen whether, for many people, Tesla's starting price of more than $3,000 will be low enough to make the economics of solar energy add up.

The BBC's Richard Taylor sees "a strong commercial rationale for Elon Musk to leverage Tesla's expertise in building highly-efficient car batteries" to put them in houses. But he adds, "The business strategy is a bit like the battery itself: high impact, but a slow release which will really only reap significant benefits over time."

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/05/01/403529202/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-unveils-home-battery-is-3-000-cheap-enough?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150501