Note: I've been working ahead on some videos to give myself some vacation time. This is one of those videos, and I'm currently on vacation. 🤠 So this video was actually made a few months ago, and this week just turned out to be the perfect time to release it. That's because Tesla just announced and they're quarterly delivery numbers that they have more than doubled mega pack deliveries
I thought I caught a hint from Elon that they are looking to do electronics that make their megapacks be able to plug into grid power directly, not requiring transformers. That could add another wrinkle!
@@prilep5 Flywheel energy storage is great for controlling rapid frequency variations and great for high discharge. Their short term energy density are limited by material science and engineering (125Wh/kg peak today). They're not great for long term energy storage due to mechanical losses even with magnetic bearings, but they're still ok, at least on par with leading edge lead acid.
@@rexbeverly6380, yeah, it's not clear to me what elon was planning with those comments. I believe he said that the next gen Megapacks would be capable of connecting directly to high voltage transmission line level infrastructure rather than requiring a substation. *How* is the question. He could be talking about including transformers within the Megapacks, or somehow getting Megapacks to work natively at those voltages so that transformers aren't required at all. Not clear to me and I'm not knowledgeable enough to speculate further.
The future is accelerating! I need to watch it again. It matches Tony Seba's/RethinkX's forecast. So many utility companies seem late to get the new paradigm. Thanks again for doing this work.
Love that you tried determining how many factories they will have to build. I did that exercise for auto factories. One thing that I noticed is that Tesla keeps trying to increase the maximum number of cars they can produce in a factory. I suspect they will do the same for battery packs. Happy to be a patreon supporter
Tough ask: when Elon had that interview with Leo DeCaprio a few years back, they estimated at that time they would need 100 factories. Then they made the factories much more productive, so the number of required factories was cut by a factor of 10. Currently, if they doubled their # of factories, they would more than double their output, since it seems that the factories are never “done” getting more productive.
If only a company knew 15 or more years ago that battery storage would plummet if they built scale ev and grid storage, and did something about it! TSLA
WOW! Always superb work! The energy portion of Tesla was the sleeping giant... that is now waking up. Great to see that it is not only realistic, it is also HIGHLY NEEDED!
It was noted at one of the recent Tesla events that the megapack in now directly connectable to high voltage power lines. There were no specifics given, but they likely recognize the shortage of transformers as a factor limiting deployments, and may be able to work around that with high power, high frequency semi conductors build into the megapack.
I don't know of any semiconductors that can handle source to drain voltage greater than ~1000 V but it might be possible to stack several inverter stages to get to the typical 7.2-16 kV distribution voltages if you're clever...
@@thewheelieguy I worked in the CRT TV design in the early 2000s, 2000V / 20 amp transistors were standard for horizontal deflection. I stacked two 2000 volt small signal transistors to make 4000 volt focus amp in 2005. There were higher voltage and current IGFETs being introduced in that time frame, so I would expect much higher specs by now.
One thing I would have added is home storage and the VPP model which I think will have a massive impact on grid storage and frequency response services.
V2G and VPP can hopefully put big dents in the BESS capacity required to decarbonize. Suppose 20M vehicles are placed in service per year; that's 1.5TWh of batteries. Assuming they are used at, say, 25% effectiveness for grid storage, that's a 25% reduction in required BESS manufacturing.
Elon also said the hyperloop would work too. So who cares what he says. Yet I agree with him. Energy production will be easy. I don't think effiency will matter as much as just having a good storage system. Hydrogen will be so niche. There are just so many issues with it. What I don't get about this video is that it disregards all the other energy storage techs. Some like redox or sand look cheap enough per KW to outclass even lithium batteries. Also who cares what I say too.
They're already in a container and they have thermal management It's a matter of cost-benefit Building with them within a building wouldn't be worthwhile
@@thelimitingfactor Is it really at $60/kWh? I suspect it is higher than this if you consider government subsidies in China. For example, CATL is vertically integrated with its own high cost lepidolite mines. These mines are unlikely to be profitable at today's lithium carbonate prices but it makes sense for CATL to run them at a loss as it puts the global LCE market into oversupply and has crashed the price. This enables CATL to buy spodumene or LCE from outside China at a low price which more than offsets their own high-cost production. They should be able to do for a few more years until global lithium demand outstrips their ability to create a market oversupply. Not sure when this will happen? BYD is engaged in the same type of behaviour.
Catl is currently aggressively moving into that market . They are the technology leaders in LFP cells and because of this the natural leaders in energy storage . Tesla has to rely on catl licenses or second tier chinese suppliers . battery storage is the business for battery producers, more specific LFP battery producers. That's not Tesla.
One issue that is often overlooked is that 8 hour batteries aren't really suitable in most grids with large amounts of renewable energy as the window of time when there is "excess" or low cost RE in the market averages around 4 to 6 hours. This currently means that a battery would need to have the capacity to charge in 4 hours, but might then discharge over 8 hours. Of course the period of low cost RE in the grid is likely to vary by season, such as summer might have 6 hours or more, but in winter it might be lucky to be 4 hours. Some regions have winds with regular daily patterns, while others the winds are dominated by cold fronts on a multi day cycle.
@@georgepelton5645 There aren't likely to be many regions where there are regularly 8 hours of low prices even in summer, even with larger amounts of wind and solar. Have a look at the South Australian grid which operates on 70% wind and solar, with no hydro or nuclear, but does have some interconnection to other regions.
Really great video, keep them up :) With the consideration that a Megapack factory will likely take 1-2 years to ramp from SOP, my current 2028 Base and Bull cases on number of megapack factories match up (circa 3x and 5x ramped). The only small point, on the Bull Case, this wouldn't alone increase Tesla's market cap by X %. The Gross Profit per GWh would decrease as prices of batteries fall, but mainly because the current market cap isn't based on current earnings per GWh, but based on mostly what's expected by Tesla in the future already.
So this is all focused around grid storage. My question is what would the forecasted grid storage needs look like if every home had some amount of battery storage and/or solar for those batteries? The more load that gets shifted off the grid the less grid storage and renewables at the grid level should be necessary.
I won't forecast that because it's not going to happen anytime in the next decade It's more likely the utilities build out solar and batteries rather than every single home decides to invest in them In other words, you have to look at reality, which is that there's going to be a mix of technologies and implementations
Will never happen. People will use more EV miles / more air con sucking up more power in the end. It’s more than you could imagine and more money then the average consumer has to spend. I had a house. And had 40k worth of solar and battery. I need double to have a zero bill. 50% of Americans don’t have $500 in their bank account so….. unless solar and batteries become free. It’s always the wealthy who will have solar or be paying for it on new houses with a 30 year mortgage meaning it ends up even more money in the end
Tytyty Mr Jordan Most technical u tube channel IVE seen #1 I jus hate I’m so poor to reward u financially taking/typin is cheap u deserve more money than I could ever give
EVs are such simple product as well and I'm sure competition with century of manufacturing expertise can mass produce it profitable fairly easily just like Tesla. It's not like they have any differentiating software package to go along with the hardware.
@thelimitingfactor currently operating battery storage is a very profitable business. ROI was 2 years in 2022. How long will such profits last is anybodys guess
@@tenzinpassang4812 EVs are much more complex than stationary storage. SW takes time to prefect, but large companies can easily catch up. There are zero mechanical parts in BESS, compared to hundreds of motors in EVs
Surprisingly, the grid forming services is complex and Tesla offering is sophisticated and Tesla actually has years of actually having their batteries manage the entire grid eg in Hawaii really tough getting electrical power engineers to trust batteries for forming the grid). BYD and catl are really smart and they will eventually acquire these skills (in 2023 byd had 70 000 engineers working in r&d. Tesla will either build or get a reasonable price batteries. They have acquired battery making equipment from catl so eventually Tesla will be making LFP batteries in the usa. So my guess is in USA Tesla will dominate grid battery storage. In the rest of the world it is going to be really competitive in the medium term
Tesla produces around $15B/150M = ~$100/kwh of gross profit for the batteries in its cars.They just cut Megapack prices to $250/kwh. There is no way they are coming close to the same level of profitability. The entire system cost will probably be lower than $100/kwh in a 3-5 years.
What happens if we change the discharge cycles from 1 per day to 4 per day. 1 megapack will distribute 16mw per day rather than 4mw, smoothing out nighttime wind farm production for morning peaks and excess midday solar for afternoon peaks. The manufacturing of the megapack uses a slide in battery module system, so it should not be difficult to make these battery modules hot swapable, they could be replaced every 4 or 5 years at minimum cost and downtime. At the current rate of improvements in battery density, cost and cycle life, a replacement battery in 4 years' time could have twice the capacity and 4 time the cycles and if the form factor can be maintained it would be more profitable to actually swap it before the original end of life. As you said, one of the limiting factors is the electrics and electronics for the packs, not the batteries.
Africa is likely to adopt solar power in a big way as there is limited current elec genersted there, lots of sun light, its cheap, and you can get power wuthout building huge power line infrastructure. So battery storage will be needed there. but will need to be cost competitive. elon was born in africa so he will understand the market better than most outsiders.
How can you calculate hydrogen makes any sense as energy storage when all systems are so expensive and they are so in efficient way to store energy? I would guess storing heat (earth battery) and using steam turbines would make much more sense compared to hydrogen.
Does this analysis also consider Tony Siba's modeling of what he calls "Super Power" approach, where solar deployment accelerates past what the status quo provides, due to a "non-linear tradeoffs in cost between generation and storage" pushing the sweet spot in that direction? That's another interesting theory on how things could go imho.
In Q2 2024 Tesla Energy deployed 9.4 GWh of battery storage - more than anybody expected and in-line with a fully ramped-up Lathrop megafactory. Does this change anything in your predictions?
Actually it was in line with Tesla's prior guidance of >75% growth in energy deployments for 2024 vs 2023 (announced in their Q1 earnings call). Since Q1 was about the same as prior quarters in 2023 they NEEDED to double output for Q2 - Q4.
If Tesla is selling mega packs with CATL and BYD batteries in China then the batteries must be the easy part just like the cars they bought same batteries as everyone else but had a better car due to packing the batteries, electric motors etc. SO what is the advantage Tesla has is it the inverters, speed of production? There must be something.
Be the first, be the best, or cheat but Tesla is doing none of those next year in China. BESS is super simple and anyone can do it and the factories are really cheap and easy to build in China. You can build 15KWhr storage at home in two hours if you watch Will Prowse or Everyday Dave on CZcams 😅. China dominates solar panel production and lithium iron phosphate cell production already - game over - Tesla failed at both already. Guess what the majority of the cost and value in a BESS Megapack is? Yes, the cells because anyone can add an inverter to a battery pack in one hour, zero effort required
@@user-oj6xh1dk8fThe mega pack inverters are more complicated and if it is so easy why would CATL and BYD pass up batteries they could sell as storage and sell to Tesla?
@@user-oj6xh1dk8fGrid forming is simple,ask Texas? Every single on-grid solar inverter can grid-follow and they cost less than USD 500. 15KWh home storage for USD 3000 is really cheap and Tesla never made profits from grid storage before 2023. The Apple badge brand doubles profit margins on crappy iPhones but some people avoid Tesla. I love Elon Musk and everything he does but outside the USA, Tesla might not do so well. Cheap BESS allows remote customers to dump the grid or use small supply connectors and use solar and fuel cells. Every microinverter does grid following, so cheap and easy!
@@chadsurles1319 Because Tesla can sell the BESS much easier than BYD and CATL can themselves. It's become increasingly difficult for Chinese companies to do business in the US, especially if critical infrastructure is concerned. There is less or no concern if Tesla builds the BESS with cells from CATL or BYD. Also Tesla does offer EPC - Engineering Procurement and Construction - while CATL and BYD don't - they have to rely on third parties to offer their BESS system to end customers, at least outside China.
What about the energy capacity per mega pack increasing over the years. As energy density increases the amount of mega packs needed will decrease due to energy density.
The need of more Megapack Factories for more batteries to reinforce the use of nonpolluting energy sources. My question is, ‘Why stop using fossil fuels if we know how to clean 90% of the pollutants in the air, in 24 hours?’ People say the resources of Earth that are needed to power our future are running out. The same people don’t want us using fossil fuels to heat the food we eat in our homes. That we heat with electricity, made from fossil fuels. ‘What are we supposed to eat the ice that collects in our cold homes?’ People have said to stay on Earth without burning the fossil fuels that pollute the air we breathe. Even though we need to get the fuel to charge, the Megapack batteries cause more pollutants. If we use the batteries in a power sector for 24 hours a month to cause the pollutants to be reduced 90%. The 2003 North American electrical blackout proved it? ‘Even if we cause pollutants to live comfortably, we shouldn’t live in discomfort.’ Let the US mine Helium 3 from the Lunar Surface so we can stay on Earth. We know how to make fission power without the high radiation by using Helium 3 from the Moon. ‘I mean if we could use the fuel, we need to make the heat needed to use Helium 3 to power the world... So, let us get there already! Or we could use the Tesla Mega Pack batteries?‘ Solving the climate and energy crises: Mine the Moon’s helium-3? by Mark Whittington, opinion contributor - 02/28/21 11:00 AM ET
The issue is the higher the scale: -competition heating up -more companies willing to take smaller margins -cell price goes down destroying revenue every quarter as Tesla lowers pricing -dilutes the “allure” when Tesla will reach a point of production on order People don’t realize it isn’t equal to, more megapack factories the better. Do you think Ferrari should pump out factories so everyone can have a 50k Ferrari? They could…. They shouldn’t
If Tesla is currently only building 12% of storage batteries, who is building all the rest? China and who else? Are they selling them worldwide? I'd heard energy storage would be shifted to LFP since they're cheaper and withstand more& deeper discharge cycles. Also, the strain on the lithium supply chain would be less because it'd only be needed for vehicles. Am I misled?
There is at least a dozen of BESS manufacturing companies out there. Tesla is among the biggest. Other big ones are Fluence, Nextera, Wärtsilä, Powin, Sungrow, Hithium while cell OEMs CATL and BYD have entered more recently.
It would be interesting to get elons viewpoint on hydrogen storage.... I don't ask him in the question during a conference only once he's done 1 hour research on it by watching this.... 5 years ago I was very passionate about Energy Storage via hydrogen but now that lithium is at the mature stage of development hydrogen is a lesser technology... Predicting hydrogen at 30%
Thats a good eye opener and, as such predictions are very difficult, we get an idea whats the worldwide demand? 13 Megapack factories for 35% of the demand would mean roughly 40 Megapack factories (from different vendors) for the worldwide demand. Coming from Northern Europe and seeing there are similar conditions away from the equator, especially in the Northern Hemisphere as there is more population for the upcoming 20-60 years as the best renewable energy source I see solar power. Wind Power is too expensive, disturbes wind/clima and produces too much noise (also within the sea) and Microplastic through abrasion. (Maybe a personal opinion no-one shares). There is the big issue of, where does the energy for 2,5 months in the winter come from? Maybe it's best to keep the fossil fuel plants for this time of the year and bring it more and more down. Gas plants it seems, that can be substituted by battery storage as long the energy somehow can be produced. Also i see some demand that needs a storage duration for maybe max 3-5 days (Rainy days..). Whats currently not existing is HVDC between the continents which could also help to have an energy exchange between northern and southern hemisphere. Also Western Europe and East of the American continent. For the pacific the distances are more challenging. Time to start more thinking on this.
Wind power is clean and perhaps more importantly it's largely local (for Europe) You can't just import everything. Countries have to have a balance of trade or fall into debt Also importantly at least for Europe most of the grid is solved by 2030 which is only 5.5 yesrs from now Many countries which Once had highly carbon intensive grids ALREADY IN 2024 have low carbon grids For example the UK This year is 122 grams CO2/KWh while it was 505 grams in 2012 So we have seen a 75% reduction in carbon intensity in our grid over just 12 years By 2030 the UK grid will be just 50 grams which is close enough to zero to be considered solved We will get to that number with basically zero batteries (less than 1KWh per capita of stationary battery storage) Batteries aren't necessary for a low carbon grid as we have and will prove Interconnectors are very important and a true breakthroughs where the cosy falls 10x would be a huge game changer and would allow a global grid which would reducd.costs and reduce the need for chemical batteries
Hey, you said 6.6% in 2021, for Tesla's % of GWH, it is 16.6%!!! Just funny!! Please do this at least every 3 to 5 years to see it change and see who Tesla does.
How will distributed microgrids using residential / commercial Virtual Power Plants factor in as a % of the US and global energy markets? It's clear Tesla is pursuing both grid scale megapack and a Powerwall solution concurrently.
At the time that I made this video, their quarterly production was 4 GW hours They are now at over double that from Lathrop, and they're building another production facility in Shanghai
Tesla is currently several years behind Chinese battery manufactures that have better technology and far more scale that both means Tesla can’t compete unless protected by steep tariffs. Not just a problem for Tesla but any company in free and democratic part of the world that makes anything requiring batteries.
Tesla's in-house cell production cost is approaching third party cost, and that's at very small scale As for the second sentence, that's why Tesla's doing it
@@thelimitingfactorI truly hope Tesla will one day make batteries at scale and at cost that can compete with BYD and CATL. I am frustrated that currently they don’t. My hope is that the arrival of AGI and humanoid robots in 2 to 5 years will speed things up dramatically so we can get to scale faster at lower cost for both batteries and solar power generation.
@@HMexperience- BYD and CATL have the Chinese government as a backstop. Tesla has a lot tougher road; however, can’t see a western government installing smart Chinese batteries least the grid scale batteries mysteriously fail at a bad moment.
India is the under appreciated major market. If tesla deployed grid stability to India, a billion people would benefit. 5 percent of those kids might want to buy teslas.
It depends on the price of lithium ion batteries The recent price plummet for lfp has stunted the growth of the sodium ion battery market Plus, study of ion still has a ways to go before it hits the super long cycle life of lfp
Towable mobile battery packs would almost instantly kill ICE vehicles and could pay for themselves acting as stationary grid storage when not in use as a range extender The vakue segment of EVs would have ~20Wh onboard battery giving ~100 miles of range. The days you need more range go to a super charger and hook up a 50/100KWh mobile battery giving you an additional 400 mile range Maybe 1% of trips would need these range extenders. The other 99% of the time you have a super affordable light weight super efficient EV. No need to carry around 80KWh pack all the time when 95% of the time 20KWh is enough
Donald Satoway is correct. Lithium is the wrong material for grid scale energy storage. As solar/wind increases and energy prices plummet, grid scale efficiency becomes less important and the cost of materials becomes more important. Google Antora energy. Over 60% of carbon emissions are from industrial heat and Antora batteries can store heat at 90+% efficiency and store electricity with at least 50% efficiency which makes sense when energy prices approach or go below $0.
@@PvMLad When energy prices are close to zero or negative (which they often are), then efficiency is immaterial. The market is driven by profit, not efficiency. Antora batteries are 1/10th the price of any lithium ion battery (an order of magnitude cheaper), and they're not even operating at scale.
@@thelimitingfactor, I am confused. Antora uses cheap solid carbon bricks, the same as the blast furnaces used years ago in Gary, Indiana. Where do they use antimony?
You and your videos ROCK. If you agree, please thumbs up (the video not my comment) and share this video to encourage more like it. Patreon for a few bucks goes a long way, too!
The aim of the world is to make and use as FEW batteries as possible as that will lower the overall cost to humanity For grid scale storage, countries will use mass batteries LAST For example here in Scotland there is a proposal to build a large pumped hydro facility which is estimated to cost $60/KWh and once built it'll have a quasi infinite life not 20 years like batteries Even if we wanted to import batteires at $300/KWh (why?) We wouldn't have the balance of trade surplus to pay for it Domestic pumped storage will almost always best batteires This excludes a relatively small amount of batteies which are useful for even fossil based grids but for mass storage batteires will be a last resort 1: Interconnectors 2: Hydro and Pumped Storage 3: Curtailment 4: Last mass storage via chemical batteries
@thelimitingfactor The biggest competitor is simply building interconnectors, which is what Europe has done, so the UK in 2024 is 122 grams CO2 vs the USA at ~390 So you can get to a -70% fossil use in USA grid with basically zero stationary battery storage And the cost of interconnectors is basically zero hard to compete with zero There isn't much of a need to deploy more than 1KWh of stationary battery storage per capita The UK has far less than 1KWh per capita and already has a low carbon grid. By 2030 we will likely still have less than 1KWh per capita and a grid which is only ~50 grams carbon intensity (vs 390 grams for the USA) So you can achieve a very clean grid woth very few batteries
I don't understand the point of your video. You waited until the end to say 13 factories but spent the whole video explaining how you arrived at the numbers.
The point of the video was in the title and thumbnail If you didn't want to watch the whole thing, there are timestamps... Use the technology, we have it, lol
Note: I've been working ahead on some videos to give myself some vacation time.
This is one of those videos, and I'm currently on vacation. 🤠
So this video was actually made a few months ago, and this week just turned out to be the perfect time to release it.
That's because Tesla just announced and they're quarterly delivery numbers that they have more than doubled mega pack deliveries
Enjoy your well deserved vacation Jordan. Wishing you and yours well. Thanks as always for the great content.
I thought I caught a hint from Elon that they are looking to do electronics that make their megapacks be able to plug into grid power directly, not requiring transformers. That could add another wrinkle!
Correct! That'll be a big help!
What is your opinion on flywheel-energy storage
@@prilep5 Flywheel energy storage is great for controlling rapid frequency variations and great for high discharge.
Their short term energy density are limited by material science and engineering (125Wh/kg peak today).
They're not great for long term energy storage due to mechanical losses even with magnetic bearings, but they're still ok, at least on par with leading edge lead acid.
Transformers are required for high AC voltage
@@rexbeverly6380, yeah, it's not clear to me what elon was planning with those comments. I believe he said that the next gen Megapacks would be capable of connecting directly to high voltage transmission line level infrastructure rather than requiring a substation. *How* is the question. He could be talking about including transformers within the Megapacks, or somehow getting Megapacks to work natively at those voltages so that transformers aren't required at all. Not clear to me and I'm not knowledgeable enough to speculate further.
Jordan, that research was impressive, thank you for all your diligent work.
🤠✊🏼
The future is accelerating! I need to watch it again. It matches Tony Seba's/RethinkX's forecast. So many utility companies seem late to get the new paradigm. Thanks again for doing this work.
I'll be covering Tony Seba's work in the next grid storage video 🤠
Tony is great... few will see how big this disruption will be.
Love that you tried determining how many factories they will have to build. I did that exercise for auto factories. One thing that I noticed is that Tesla keeps trying to increase the maximum number of cars they can produce in a factory. I suspect they will do the same for battery packs. Happy to be a patreon supporter
And thanks for sticking with me for all these years man! ✊🏼
Tough ask: when Elon had that interview with Leo DeCaprio a few years back, they estimated at that time they would need 100 factories. Then they made the factories much more productive, so the number of required factories was cut by a factor of 10. Currently, if they doubled their # of factories, they would more than double their output, since it seems that the factories are never “done” getting more productive.
If only a company knew 15 or more years ago that battery storage would plummet if they built scale ev and grid storage, and did something about it! TSLA
🎯😁
WOW! Always superb work! The energy portion of Tesla was the sleeping giant... that is now waking up. Great to see that it is not only realistic, it is also HIGHLY NEEDED!
🤠🎯
8h is about sustaining overnight usage while solar is not producing.
Yes it can an will
Well done and professional. I love all the actual numbers you use.
🤠✊🏼
It was noted at one of the recent Tesla events that the megapack in now directly connectable to high voltage power lines. There were no specifics given, but they likely recognize the shortage of transformers as a factor limiting deployments, and may be able to work around that with high power, high frequency semi conductors build into the megapack.
Correct, but see the pinned comment
This video was actually made months ago
I don't know of any semiconductors that can handle source to drain voltage greater than ~1000 V but it might be possible to stack several inverter stages to get to the typical 7.2-16 kV distribution voltages if you're clever...
@@thewheelieguy I worked in the CRT TV design in the early 2000s, 2000V / 20 amp transistors were standard for horizontal deflection. I stacked two 2000 volt small signal transistors to make 4000 volt focus amp in 2005. There were higher voltage and current IGFETs being introduced in that time frame, so I would expect much higher specs by now.
@@thewheelieguy There are a few semiconductor technologies that can handle higher voltages. Thryistors are one that have been around for a while.
Thanks! I think this is the area with Tesla's greatest most immediate potential.
Thanks for the support! ✊🏼🤠
Another incredible video!!
Thanks for all the hard work to put this together.
Well worth the Patreon!!
Thanks for the support man!
One thing I would have added is home storage and the VPP model which I think will have a massive impact on grid storage and frequency response services.
🎯
V2G and VPP can hopefully put big dents in the BESS capacity required to decarbonize. Suppose 20M vehicles are placed in service per year; that's 1.5TWh of batteries. Assuming they are used at, say, 25% effectiveness for grid storage, that's a 25% reduction in required BESS manufacturing.
Elon musk has said about hydrogen: “the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.” 30% efficiency says it all.
Are not solar panels 20% efficient?
Elon also said the hyperloop would work too.
So who cares what he says. Yet I agree with him.
Energy production will be easy. I don't think effiency will matter as much as just having a good storage system.
Hydrogen will be so niche. There are just so many issues with it.
What I don't get about this video is that it disregards all the other energy storage techs. Some like redox or sand look cheap enough per KW to outclass even lithium batteries.
Also who cares what I say too.
I love these videos! ❤
Thanks man!
And I love all that you do for the community as well.
It's a pretty hardcore and awesome group of people.
Lots of information, thank you for putting this all together. Enjoy your vacation!
looks like the mega packs should be inside of a building to reduce the external environmental impact. might as well put some solar on top of it too.
They're already in a container and they have thermal management
It's a matter of cost-benefit
Building with them within a building wouldn't be worthwhile
I’m sure Tesla energy will start to make a difference in home battery back ups especially as much it’s needed in Texas right now.
I have herd that cell level cost of LFP battery has already hit $60/kWh mark in China.
Correct!
@@thelimitingfactor Is it really at $60/kWh? I suspect it is higher than this if you consider government subsidies in China. For example, CATL is vertically integrated with its own high cost lepidolite mines. These mines are unlikely to be profitable at today's lithium carbonate prices but it makes sense for CATL to run them at a loss as it puts the global LCE market into oversupply and has crashed the price. This enables CATL to buy spodumene or LCE from outside China at a low price which more than offsets their own high-cost production. They should be able to do for a few more years until global lithium demand outstrips their ability to create a market oversupply. Not sure when this will happen? BYD is engaged in the same type of behaviour.
Catl is currently aggressively moving into that market . They are the technology leaders in LFP cells and because of this the natural leaders in energy storage . Tesla has to rely on catl licenses or second tier chinese suppliers . battery storage is the business for battery producers, more specific LFP battery producers. That's not Tesla.
One issue that is often overlooked is that 8 hour batteries aren't really suitable in most grids with large amounts of renewable energy as the window of time when there is "excess" or low cost RE in the market averages around 4 to 6 hours. This currently means that a battery would need to have the capacity to charge in 4 hours, but might then discharge over 8 hours.
Of course the period of low cost RE in the grid is likely to vary by season, such as summer might have 6 hours or more, but in winter it might be lucky to be 4 hours. Some regions have winds with regular daily patterns, while others the winds are dominated by cold fronts on a multi day cycle.
This may change as more PV and wind is built to supply winter demand, resulting in more curtailment in the summer. 8 hours may be appropriate then.
@@georgepelton5645 There aren't likely to be many regions where there are regularly 8 hours of low prices even in summer, even with larger amounts of wind and solar. Have a look at the South Australian grid which operates on 70% wind and solar, with no hydro or nuclear, but does have some interconnection to other regions.
Stunning work. Thanks heaps.
🤜🏼🤛🏼🤠
Thank you for an excellent presentation
Really great video, keep them up :) With the consideration that a Megapack factory will likely take 1-2 years to ramp from SOP, my current 2028 Base and Bull cases on number of megapack factories match up (circa 3x and 5x ramped).
The only small point, on the Bull Case, this wouldn't alone increase Tesla's market cap by X %. The Gross Profit per GWh would decrease as prices of batteries fall, but mainly because the current market cap isn't based on current earnings per GWh, but based on mostly what's expected by Tesla in the future already.
Good point! Thanks Jack
Great info @ 32gwh a year. 80 % of projected 40gwh capacity.
outstanding analysis! 👏
So this is all focused around grid storage. My question is what would the forecasted grid storage needs look like if every home had some amount of battery storage and/or solar for those batteries? The more load that gets shifted off the grid the less grid storage and renewables at the grid level should be necessary.
I won't forecast that because it's not going to happen anytime in the next decade
It's more likely the utilities build out solar and batteries rather than every single home decides to invest in them
In other words, you have to look at reality, which is that there's going to be a mix of technologies and implementations
Will never happen. People will use more EV miles / more air con sucking up more power in the end.
It’s more than you could imagine and more money then the average consumer has to spend.
I had a house. And had 40k worth of solar and battery. I need double to have a zero bill. 50% of Americans don’t have $500 in their bank account so….. unless solar and batteries become free. It’s always the wealthy who will have solar or be paying for it on new houses with a 30 year mortgage meaning it ends up even more money in the end
You promised and you (over) delivered. Great work!
This is really challenging to stay engaged listening to.
excellent ... loved it
🤜🏼🤛🏼🤠
Thanks!
Thanks for the support, every dollar helps!
Tytyty Mr Jordan Most technical u tube channel IVE seen #1 I jus hate I’m so poor to reward u financially taking/typin is cheap u deserve more money than I could ever give
Thanks for the kind words man! I appreciate it
Megapack is a relatively simple product. CATL and BYD have a huge advantage in costs for such packs.
Will be hard to compete with.
Depends on how it's packaged, and how much of the value chain they swallow besides batteries
EVs are such simple product as well and I'm sure competition with century of manufacturing expertise can mass produce it profitable fairly easily just like Tesla. It's not like they have any differentiating software package to go along with the hardware.
@thelimitingfactor currently operating battery storage is a very profitable business. ROI was 2 years in 2022. How long will such profits last is anybodys guess
@@tenzinpassang4812 EVs are much more complex than stationary storage.
SW takes time to prefect, but large companies can easily catch up.
There are zero mechanical parts in BESS, compared to hundreds of motors in EVs
Surprisingly, the grid forming services is complex and Tesla offering is sophisticated and Tesla actually has years of actually having their batteries manage the entire grid eg in Hawaii really tough getting electrical power engineers to trust batteries for forming the grid). BYD and catl are really smart and they will eventually acquire these skills (in 2023 byd had 70 000 engineers working in r&d. Tesla will either build or get a reasonable price batteries. They have acquired battery making equipment from catl so eventually Tesla will be making LFP batteries in the usa. So my guess is in USA Tesla will dominate grid battery storage. In the rest of the world it is going to be really competitive in the medium term
Thanks for the link to the book!
Excellent and very insightful analysis, thank you !
I wish Tesla would produce a mini megapack. Something capable for smaller communities and businesses about half the size.
Please video on electric 2 door small car
Tesla produces around $15B/150M = ~$100/kwh of gross profit for the batteries in its cars.They just cut Megapack prices to $250/kwh. There is no way they are coming close to the same level of profitability. The entire system cost will probably be lower than $100/kwh in a 3-5 years.
Yes, but you're also forgetting the cost of power converters. Batteries are much cheaper than power electronics on the scale MWh and MW.
Awesome stuff
What happens if we change the discharge cycles from 1 per day to 4 per day. 1 megapack will distribute 16mw per day rather than 4mw, smoothing out nighttime wind farm production for morning peaks and excess midday solar for afternoon peaks. The manufacturing of the megapack uses a slide in battery module system, so it should not be difficult to make these battery modules hot swapable, they could be replaced every 4 or 5 years at minimum cost and downtime. At the current rate of improvements in battery density, cost and cycle life, a replacement battery in 4 years' time could have twice the capacity and 4 time the cycles and if the form factor can be maintained it would be more profitable to actually swap it before the original end of life. As you said, one of the limiting factors is the electrics and electronics for the packs, not the batteries.
Africa is likely to adopt solar power in a big way as there is limited current elec genersted there, lots of sun light, its cheap, and you can get power wuthout building huge power line infrastructure. So battery storage will be needed there. but will need to be cost competitive. elon was born in africa so he will understand the market better than most outsiders.
How can you calculate hydrogen makes any sense as energy storage when all systems are so expensive and they are so in efficient way to store energy?
I would guess storing heat (earth battery) and using steam turbines would make much more sense compared to hydrogen.
Sodium-ion batteries are very likely to be the dominant solution starting in a few years.
Thank you!
Emotionally, we affirm the successful transition of funds from the bank to your Visa/Mastercard card.
Does this analysis also consider Tony Siba's modeling of what he calls "Super Power" approach, where solar deployment accelerates past what the status quo provides, due to a "non-linear tradeoffs in cost between generation and storage" pushing the sweet spot in that direction?
That's another interesting theory on how things could go imho.
Tony Siba video for reference:
czcams.com/video/PM2RxWtF4Ds/video.htmlfeature=shared&t=283
You should take a look at Eos energy and their zinc bromide Z3 BESS for long duration discharges.
I'll do a video on it eventually, I'm familiar with it
In Q2 2024 Tesla Energy deployed 9.4 GWh of battery storage - more than anybody expected and in-line with a fully ramped-up Lathrop megafactory.
Does this change anything in your predictions?
That is only one fully ramped factory
And it aligns with what's in the video
So no, that doesn't change my predictions
Actually it was in line with Tesla's prior guidance of >75% growth in energy deployments for 2024 vs 2023 (announced in their Q1 earnings call). Since Q1 was about the same as prior quarters in 2023 they NEEDED to double output for Q2 - Q4.
Usually you don't pull so many numbers out of thin air. I'm surprised you uploaded this one with so many assumptions and made up numbers.
Yeah yeah yeah… what’s the share price?
I’m joking by the way. Appreciate this perspective mate!!!
✊🏼💯
Wow! Wish you were my neighbour 😂
Would you be my,
Could you be my,
Won’t you be my,
Neighbor?
If Tesla is selling mega packs with CATL and BYD batteries in China then the batteries must be the easy part just like the cars they bought same batteries as everyone else but had a better car due to packing the batteries, electric motors etc. SO what is the advantage Tesla has is it the inverters, speed of production? There must be something.
Software, packaging, and the amount of the deployment chain they own
Be the first, be the best, or cheat but Tesla is doing none of those next year in China. BESS is super simple and anyone can do it and the factories are really cheap and easy to build in China. You can build 15KWhr storage at home in two hours if you watch Will Prowse or Everyday Dave on CZcams 😅.
China dominates solar panel production and lithium iron phosphate cell production already - game over - Tesla failed at both already. Guess what the majority of the cost and value in a BESS Megapack is?
Yes, the cells because anyone can add an inverter to a battery pack in one hour, zero effort required
@@user-oj6xh1dk8fThe mega pack inverters are more complicated and if it is so easy why would CATL and BYD pass up batteries they could sell as storage and sell to Tesla?
@@user-oj6xh1dk8fGrid forming is simple,ask Texas? Every single on-grid solar inverter can grid-follow and they cost less than USD 500.
15KWh home storage for USD 3000 is really cheap and Tesla never made profits from grid storage before 2023.
The Apple badge brand doubles profit margins on crappy iPhones but some people avoid Tesla. I love Elon Musk and everything he does but outside the USA, Tesla might not do so well.
Cheap BESS allows remote customers to dump the grid or use small supply connectors and use solar and fuel cells.
Every microinverter does grid following, so cheap and easy!
@@chadsurles1319 Because Tesla can sell the BESS much easier than BYD and CATL can themselves. It's become increasingly difficult for Chinese companies to do business in the US, especially if critical infrastructure is concerned. There is less or no concern if Tesla builds the BESS with cells from CATL or BYD. Also Tesla does offer EPC - Engineering Procurement and Construction - while CATL and BYD don't - they have to rely on third parties to offer their BESS system to end customers, at least outside China.
What about the energy capacity per mega pack increasing over the years. As energy density increases the amount of mega packs needed will decrease due to energy density.
Great question to ask and address. FYI: minor narration or slide mismatch at T-1118 (6.6% vs 16.6%), czcams.com/video/HaIVitBHryE/video.html
An insider's perspective: exclusive interview with Binance's CEO on future developments
The need of more Megapack Factories for more batteries to reinforce the use of nonpolluting energy sources. My question is, ‘Why stop using fossil fuels if we know how to clean 90% of the pollutants in the air, in 24 hours?’
People say the resources of Earth that are needed to power our future are running out. The same people don’t want us using fossil fuels to heat the food we eat in our homes. That we heat with electricity, made from fossil fuels.
‘What are we supposed to eat the ice that collects in our cold homes?’
People have said to stay on Earth without burning the fossil fuels that pollute the air we breathe. Even though we need to get the fuel to charge, the Megapack batteries cause more pollutants. If we use the batteries in a power sector for 24 hours a month to cause the pollutants to be reduced 90%.
The 2003 North American electrical blackout proved it?
‘Even if we cause pollutants to live comfortably, we shouldn’t live in discomfort.’
Let the US mine Helium 3 from the Lunar Surface so we can stay on Earth. We know how to make fission power without the high radiation by using Helium 3 from the Moon.
‘I mean if we could use the fuel, we need to make the heat needed to use Helium 3 to power the world... So, let us get there already! Or we could use the Tesla Mega Pack batteries?‘
Solving the climate and energy crises: Mine the Moon’s helium-3?
by Mark Whittington, opinion contributor - 02/28/21 11:00 AM ET
I would like to see how many Megawatt factories versus dates that will be needed in the US.
I'm not quite sure I understand this
@@thelimitingfactor I guess I would like to see a graph of the number of factories needed versus time (2025 - 2045) for the US.
The issue is the higher the scale:
-competition heating up
-more companies willing to take smaller margins
-cell price goes down destroying revenue every quarter as Tesla lowers pricing
-dilutes the “allure” when Tesla will reach a point of production on order
People don’t realize it isn’t equal to, more megapack factories the better. Do you think Ferrari should pump out factories so everyone can have a 50k Ferrari? They could…. They shouldn’t
By that logic, you should never get into manufacturing anything
Innovation is an unbeatable monopoly if done right.
If Tesla is currently only building 12% of storage batteries, who is building all the rest? China and who else? Are they selling them worldwide?
I'd heard energy storage would be shifted to LFP since they're cheaper and withstand more& deeper discharge cycles. Also, the strain on the lithium supply chain would be less because it'd only be needed for vehicles. Am I misled?
There is at least a dozen of BESS manufacturing companies out there. Tesla is among the biggest. Other big ones are Fluence, Nextera, Wärtsilä, Powin, Sungrow, Hithium while cell OEMs CATL and BYD have entered more recently.
Elon told next version will have direct grid connection. No transformers needed.
That would be fantastic. Plop one of these in smalltown USA, and wire up some chargers. Bonus points if you use it as part of a microgrid.
Correct!
It would be interesting to get elons viewpoint on hydrogen storage.... I don't ask him in the question during a conference only once he's done 1 hour research on it by watching this.... 5 years ago I was very passionate about Energy Storage via hydrogen but now that lithium is at the mature stage of development hydrogen is a lesser technology... Predicting hydrogen at 30%
Thats a good eye opener and, as such predictions are very difficult, we get an idea whats the worldwide demand? 13 Megapack factories for 35% of the demand would mean roughly 40 Megapack factories (from different vendors) for the worldwide demand.
Coming from Northern Europe and seeing there are similar conditions away from the equator, especially in the Northern Hemisphere as there is more population for the upcoming 20-60 years as the best renewable energy source I see solar power. Wind Power is too expensive, disturbes wind/clima and produces too much noise (also within the sea) and Microplastic through abrasion. (Maybe a personal opinion no-one shares).
There is the big issue of, where does the energy for 2,5 months in the winter come from? Maybe it's best to keep the fossil fuel plants for this time of the year and bring it more and more down. Gas plants it seems, that can be substituted by battery storage as long the energy somehow can be produced.
Also i see some demand that needs a storage duration for maybe max 3-5 days (Rainy days..).
Whats currently not existing is HVDC between the continents which could also help to have an energy exchange between northern and southern hemisphere. Also Western Europe and East of the American continent. For the pacific the distances are more challenging.
Time to start more thinking on this.
Wind power is clean and perhaps more importantly it's largely local (for Europe)
You can't just import everything. Countries have to have a balance of trade or fall into debt
Also importantly at least for Europe most of the grid is solved by 2030 which is only 5.5 yesrs from now
Many countries which Once had highly carbon intensive grids ALREADY IN 2024 have low carbon grids
For example the UK This year is 122 grams CO2/KWh while it was 505 grams in 2012
So we have seen a 75% reduction in carbon intensity in our grid over just 12 years
By 2030 the UK grid will be just 50 grams which is close enough to zero to be considered solved
We will get to that number with basically zero batteries (less than 1KWh per capita of stationary battery storage)
Batteries aren't necessary for a low carbon grid as we have and will prove
Interconnectors are very important and a true breakthroughs where the cosy falls 10x would be a huge game changer and would allow a global grid which would reducd.costs and reduce the need for chemical batteries
Hey, you said 6.6% in 2021, for Tesla's % of GWH, it is 16.6%!!! Just funny!!
Please do this at least every 3 to 5 years to see it change and see who Tesla does.
How will distributed microgrids using residential / commercial Virtual Power Plants factor in as a % of the US and global energy markets? It's clear Tesla is pursuing both grid scale megapack and a Powerwall solution concurrently.
Yes, both solutions are necessary, it depends on the situation
You mentioned Tesla intends to triple Megapack production by the end of year. How much and where?
At the time that I made this video, their quarterly production was 4 GW hours
They are now at over double that from Lathrop, and they're building another production facility in Shanghai
Maybe the transformers are the bottleneck. Very hard to produce. Tesla should look into that.
They are, in the next version of the mega pack, it will be able to plug directly into high voltage
Tesla is currently several years behind Chinese battery manufactures that have better technology and far more scale that both means Tesla can’t compete unless protected by steep tariffs. Not just a problem for Tesla but any company in free and democratic part of the world that makes anything requiring batteries.
Tesla's in-house cell production cost is approaching third party cost, and that's at very small scale
As for the second sentence, that's why Tesla's doing it
@@thelimitingfactorI truly hope Tesla will one day make batteries at scale and at cost that can compete with BYD and CATL. I am frustrated that currently they don’t. My hope is that the arrival of AGI and humanoid robots in 2 to 5 years will speed things up dramatically so we can get to scale faster at lower cost for both batteries and solar power generation.
@@HMexperienceYOU are frustrated? Imagine how Drew Baglino feels…
@@HMexperience- BYD and CATL have the Chinese government as a backstop. Tesla has a lot tougher road; however, can’t see a western government installing smart Chinese batteries least the grid scale batteries mysteriously fail at a bad moment.
I see every person in US having 1-2 Optimus style 20kw bots. How does that change your calculation? Within ten years.
20kw?
What happens when fusion enters the scene ?
It'll have to compete, and that won't be easy.
India is the under appreciated major market. If tesla deployed grid stability to India, a billion people would benefit. 5 percent of those kids might want to buy teslas.
The last time Tesla tried to get an agreement with India it didn't lead to anything.
As usual you use great assumptions here but what about sodium?
It depends on the price of lithium ion batteries
The recent price plummet for lfp has stunted the growth of the sodium ion battery market
Plus, study of ion still has a ways to go before it hits the super long cycle life of lfp
Towable mobile battery packs would almost instantly kill ICE vehicles and could pay for themselves acting as stationary grid storage when not in use as a range extender
The vakue segment of EVs would have ~20Wh onboard battery giving ~100 miles of range. The days you need more range go to a super charger and hook up a 50/100KWh mobile battery giving you an additional 400 mile range
Maybe 1% of trips would need these range extenders. The other 99% of the time you have a super affordable light weight super efficient EV. No need to carry around 80KWh pack all the time when 95% of the time 20KWh is enough
There's a whole lot of creative ways to deploy battery storage ✊🏼
And there's a whole lot of different energy storage markets
Where is Australia in the above chart?
You have to give me a timestamp
There are dozens or hundreds of slides in each video and I can't consign all of them to memory
Timely video!?
what about all the companies making flow batteries? rust/water, vanadium flow, antimony flow, aluminum, etc.
Useful, but niche compared to lithium ion
Donald Satoway is correct. Lithium is the wrong material for grid scale energy storage. As solar/wind increases and energy prices plummet, grid scale efficiency becomes less important and the cost of materials becomes more important. Google Antora energy. Over 60% of carbon emissions are from industrial heat and Antora batteries can store heat at 90+% efficiency and store electricity with at least 50% efficiency which makes sense when energy prices approach or go below $0.
50% efficiency is incredibly low in electricity storage.
@@PvMLad When energy prices are close to zero or negative (which they often are), then efficiency is immaterial. The market is driven by profit, not efficiency. Antora batteries are 1/10th the price of any lithium ion battery (an order of magnitude cheaper), and they're not even operating at scale.
Donald says the right thing but does the wrong things
His battery uses antimony, which is more expensive and less scalable than iron/lithium cathodes
@@thelimitingfactorAnti-money? What we use to buy antimatter?❤
@@thelimitingfactor, I am confused. Antora uses cheap solid carbon bricks, the same as the blast furnaces used years ago in Gary, Indiana. Where do they use antimony?
👍👍
Great content, but your Voice sounds like the Guy that says: „thats right, it goes in the square hole“. Sorry, i had to tell you. 😅
🤣💯
You and your videos ROCK. If you agree, please thumbs up (the video not my comment) and share this video to encourage more like it. Patreon for a few bucks goes a long way, too!
✊🏼🤠
it is not realistic to use Li for storage - Na is the only option here at scale. China will have a much bigger market share globally
The aim of the world is to make and use as FEW batteries as possible as that will lower the overall cost to humanity
For grid scale storage, countries will use mass batteries LAST
For example here in Scotland there is a proposal to build a large pumped hydro facility which is estimated to cost $60/KWh and once built it'll have a quasi infinite life not 20 years like batteries
Even if we wanted to import batteires at $300/KWh (why?) We wouldn't have the balance of trade surplus to pay for it
Domestic pumped storage will almost always best batteires
This excludes a relatively small amount of batteies which are useful for even fossil based grids but for mass storage batteires will be a last resort
1: Interconnectors
2: Hydro and Pumped Storage
3: Curtailment
4: Last mass storage via chemical batteries
You haven't taken into account how much cheaper batteries will get
Plus, pumped hydro has a lot of issues
@thelimitingfactor The biggest competitor is simply building interconnectors, which is what Europe has done, so the UK in 2024 is 122 grams CO2 vs the USA at ~390
So you can get to a -70% fossil use in USA grid with basically zero stationary battery storage
And the cost of interconnectors is basically zero hard to compete with zero
There isn't much of a need to deploy more than 1KWh of stationary battery storage per capita
The UK has far less than 1KWh per capita and already has a low carbon grid. By 2030 we will likely still have less than 1KWh per capita and a grid which is only ~50 grams carbon intensity (vs 390 grams for the USA)
So you can achieve a very clean grid woth very few batteries
Pumped hydro is hardly a universal solution.
no way will pure hydrogen be used as energy storage
Elon should comment on this video.
Hows your relationship with Elon Musk?. Could you get him to comment on this?. Maybe an interview?
Nah, he has bigger fish to fry. He responds to me occasionally.
I don't understand the point of your video. You waited until the end to say 13 factories but spent the whole video explaining how you arrived at the numbers.
The point of the video was in the title and thumbnail
If you didn't want to watch the whole thing, there are timestamps...
Use the technology, we have it, lol
How fast will they burn ?
Anything that stores a lot of energy in a small area has the potential to release it quickly, and catastrophically
Batteries, gasoline, uranium, etc
The Big Bang taught us that rapid oxidation is in fact, rapid.🎉