One of the big obstacles in alternative energy is that some of its primary gathering mechanisms -- solar, wind, reclaimed heat -- aren't continuously available, so no matter how much of a science lab you have bolted to your roof, you still might run out of TV electricity during a calm night's
Curb Your Enthusiasm marathon. Well,
Panasonic's recent buy of Sanyo brought with it some choice battery tech, and the newly joined companies think they can be the first to build and ship a storage battery for home use. The plan is to release the lithium-ion cell in 2011, with enough juice in it to power a home for a week (a Japanese home, we presume), and the battery will be paired with a system to allow the user to monitor electricity usage on their TV. Of course, fuel cells have traditionally been looked to as the great home energy storage hope, but we doubt any will be able to compete with the tried-and-true lithium-ion by the time 2011 rolls around.
posted December 23rd 2009 11:10AM
How easy is it to get electric shocked when changing them each week
@OCEAN CLAK You don't change it. That's the whole point of rechargeable batteries.
@OCEAN CLAK oooo... That must sting
Power a home? Hmm, maybe power my 8 year old's bedroom (if she'd turn of that dang rap music!) kids...
That's got nothin' on my PC's dedicated power supply
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9581/desktophyk.jpg
And is this battery the size of a shed or my phone? Does it need to be delivered by helicopter?
@cfhuk lots of homes that have an alternative energy supply like solar or wind also have a "battery bank". It's basically just a bunch of car batteries hooked together to maintain a constant and stable flow to the house. Some of the bigger ones I've seen are bigger than a chest freezer and would only power a house for maybe half a day to a full day on their own. This is probably going to be huge.
@(Unverified)
That means that render is actually the size of train engine?
@Kurian Well take the size of the standard cable which comes into your house, then imagine it plugged into the battery and scale up from there. its gonna be big even with lithium ion, but then again batteries are improving capacity so it may not be too bad. I did a small study as part of my degree on how many batteries you'd need to run a standard sized house with rechargeable batteries (car batteries) and panels and turbines and with their capacity the method didn't do too well, having the batteries being constantly used with a high draw and input wore them out fast, and the cost of replacing them and of the setup itself cost more than just being wired up to the mains. Had a lower CO2 footprint though, despite the transport and manufacture of the components.
Better batteries are the answer and this is a good sign in this field.
just looks like lots of AA batteries in a box
@psp888
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_8n2Qgguto
I wonder how a Japanese home equates to an American home in terms of power consumption?
@jgpuff
Current exchange rate is 1 week's Japanese power consumption = 42 seconds American.
@jgpuff
Depends on how you look at the US data.
New England: 649 (kWh / mo)
Middle Atlantic: 722
East North Central: 830
West North Central: 970
South Atlantic: 1,156
East South Central: 1,290
West South Central: 1,149
Mountain: 908
Pacific Contiguous: 699
Pacific Noncontiguous: 659
______________________
Japan: (495 kWh / mo)
@gerrrg Even then, the battery would cost a fortune.
495 KWh/mth, 115.5 KWh/week. Compare to laptop batteries, which can cost $150 for 60Wh. This battery would cost roughly $289K, more than a quarter million dollars! The cost of these things will need to drop by at least a factor of ten to become worthwhile, and the price of lithium ion batteries hasn't changed much in half a decade...
@Guspaz The capacity of the battery pack of a Tesla is already 54kWh, and said pack is reported to cost $20k. So when you need to power a house (consuming an average 1kW) for a week, the 84kWh pack could eventually be had for $30k after rebates. A lot, still, but not impossible to bear for whom really badly wants or needs it.
A good friend lives in an area prone to ice storms/power outages and his neighborhood CC&Rs won't allow built-in backup generators. Although I also doubt it could power an entire home for that long it might be an option for him.
@(Unverified) I'd not move into a neighborhood like that. That's ridiculous.
@(Unverified) That's absolute bullshit that homeowner's associations disallow backup generators.
I guess those stuck-up pricks don't care if, for example, someone had life support equipment they rely upon and if the power cuts they NEED reliable power to depend on their life.
I say fuck 'em - they can't tell if I have a backup generator hidden somewhere in basement or garage piped out to the exterior, can't they?
Is that neighborhood the bronx?
@dragonfli & barry99705,
It's a big condo complex. The units are tightly packed and thus they have noise restrictions so no one can have one, pretty common actually. He does have a small Honda generator which is pretty quiet but his neighbors have complained just for using that. More than likely they were just jealous and felt stupid that they did not think of it.
@(Unverified)
That is actually illegal depending on the state
@(Unverified) In an emergency like an extended power outage, it's totally OK to violate CC&Rs. In fact, it's mostly OK anyway. I bet his association has a weight limit on dogs of 2.8 pounds and half the people have large dogs. For the most part, CC&Rs are just ammunition for a hypothetical nuclear pissing match. Treat them as such.
I'd put this in my laptop, hopefully it doesnt melt down and take my wood floor with it.
If it can power a home for a week I'm guessing the size would mean you could at best strap a laptop ontop of it, and access it with a small ladder .
I'd assume that since a single battery can power a (presumably Japanese) home for a week, that this technology would still be applicable for homes where electrical usage is high like in the United States.
The battery appears pretty small and I doubt it'd be much of an inconvenience to put many of these in some small corner.
its a good choice, for homes in remote locations... :)
I'd happily strap it to the back of my HD2 and try and get a full days use!
Doing this would seriously deplete the available lithium would it not? Raising prices of gadgets through the roof I imagine.
Someone stop them already :o
Yes, for the love of everything, yes, please give us better battery technology!
This could be interesting - as I already use 8, 12-volt, 265 amp hour batteries (each weighing 200 lbs) to serve as a backup source of energy for my office/servers.
That provides enough energy to run a 1000 watt load for ~ 24 hours.
Yeah I'm thinking this would be the size of car, and slightly more expensive than one, a new one that is.
It appears that the people commenting do not have any understanding of the power storage density of current battery technology versus the power needs of a house anywhere in the developed world.
"The plan is to release the lithium-ion cell in 2011, with enough juice in it to power a home for a week"
If this could be sized down to what appears to be in the picture it would be a technological development on par with cold fusion.
@Kaveman
My home uses 250 kWh per month on average (over the past 2 years) It is a little more in the winter, and less in the summer.
That is still quite a bit of power, but if I could add someway to generate electricity, this could work.
What we need are cheap batteries (or power storage units) that last 50 years. They need to be able to be recharged thousands of times, and be easy to setup (+ & -, not wiring 12 batteries together)
@rcappo
Take a look at gel batteries that are used in forklifts. ;)
@rcappo You are basically looking for a viable supercapacitor - one of the holy grails of EE
@rcappo: A home that only uses 8 kWh a day is likely in a pretty temperate and sunny climate - 1.5 - 2kw of PV should be enough to cover your usage and let net metering be your 'battery.'
Interesting product. I'm sure this will go well with the terrorist fearing freaks who walk around with tin foil hats afraid of the alien mind control.
Sure, why don't you head right over to NYC and tell the relatives of all the 9-11 victims their paranoid "freaks". And be sure to YouTube it, won't you?
Dumbass.
@psycros
No sir, you are the true douche for being a fear monger and bringing up 9\11. And being a fear monger and being afraid of terrorists is exactly what they want, so you're letting them win.
I'd want to be really sure this has too many safeguards. I'd hate to see what would ahppen when a weeks' household power explodes in a fire.
I am currently in the Dominican Republic (for the last year actually), and one of two things people will tell you is the it is not known for it's electrical grid. They have supposed 24/7 grids and then they have scheduled grids. the funny thing is that the scheduled and 24/7 grids come from the same power plant sometimes. Any way, to the poster who said they use car batteries, you can, but it isn't recommended. There are much better batteries for this (http://www.trojanbattery.com/Products/RenewableEnergy.aspx). Car batteries are not quite the same. I have tried that. The best is to get a forklift gel battery. Failing that, Trojan has a nice battery (8D-AGM) that would do almost as well. Some websites list it as a marine battery, but on the Trojan site it is a Renewable Energy battery.
Where I am right now, we have 4 Trace Batteries, with that I can watch my 47" LCD TV and have the fridge on for more than 5 hours. If only the fridge and a couple of lights and a ceiling fan (depending on design) I can get more than 20 hours. It is sad that I know this, but it is true. The reason I have four batteries is because they are 6v and my inverter is a 24v model (all inverters over 1kw are like that, I believe). I have a friend down here who has 12 batteries, he gets 24hrs out of his bank, while using his microwave and elevator.
In short, if these batteries do as Panasonic/Sanyo say, I will start selling those babies the day they are available.
@Jai Molloy
So you are swimming in money and are in the dominican republic for a year? CIA section chief? Or do you travel around the world rubbing it in for fun, or because cheney hired you as secondary evildoer?
Most people just use the grid for energy storage.
grid has no storage, although for decades there have been plans for large superconducting rings that act as storage.
@Wwhat
I should have written that most people use the grid for "storage". They feed their excess power back to the grid where it is used by other people (not really stored), and they receive credits for that energy. When they are running short then they draw from the grid. The utility company keeps tabs on the balance and credits or charges the customer at the end of the year. No storage really needed unless you want to be off of the grid completely.
@Wwhat
You mean stargates?
I'll shut up now...
Solar and wind are in fact continuously available (the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing) it's just that our grids and infrastructure are out of date and in need of change.
I don't see this as something that would allow you to continue running your 110 Watt x7 receiver, your 52" LCD HDTV and your energy hogging gaming PC.
I see it more as something that will allow you to have lighting in your home, charge you mobile so you can access the internet or call someone and have your home phone still working when you lose power (I don't know why so many home phone need power for them to work)
This is a great idea; I would like it to be stackable so you can get more than one.
I paid 79$ for my UPS which gives me 13 to 18 minutes uptime for my computer. once I lost power and powered down the PC and plugged two LED light and powered my speakers which was plugged into my Zune and had lights and music while putting a puzzle together.
Li-Ion... I have no doubt that a home backup generator can be powered by one such device. My concern, however, is the shelf-life of such a battery?
Li-Ions in mobile phones start to lose their charge after a few years. Even car batteries. What info is available to see these larger (and obviously more expensive) backup generators lasting for 5, 10, 20 years?
If they last for 20 years or more, then that's pretty good. Otherwise......