New Panasonic Lithium-Ion Battery to Power Up a House [New Li-Ion Battery Coming from Panasonic in 2011]

I’m not sure how eco friendly this really is as stocking energy implies a waste in the conversion process.

Also, this must be aimed for the south, as i can’t imagine a week of battery in the winter with a bunch of 1.5kW heater running without the battery take a whole room.

I’m not sure how eco friendly this really us, as stocking energy implies a waste in the conversion process.

Also, this must be aimed for the north, as I can’t imagine a week of battery in the summer with a bunch of 1.5kW ACs running without the battery take a whole room.

Get the point?

Yeah :( If I count how many times I have seen such announcements I’d be counting to infinity. None of these technologies announced in the last 5-10 years have come to fruition. I have seen claims of prototypes of batteries that charge in 5 seconds for 5 hours use, others promising user-liquid re-fillable batteries that should last for days, paper-thin batteries, PAPER batteries, nuclear batteries etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. I’m still waiting for ANY of them to be delivered ;) When you announce something that will be available in 2011 it means it would be available by 2011 IF all your sci-fi dreams come true. They never do. No battery tech revolution has happened despite several company’s claim to have found holy grails of fast-charging/long duration/lifetime/safe/light/cheap everything-battery. So please PAN, my dear, DO NOT announce anything before you have something in your hands that you can manufacture and deliver because currently, YOU DON’T!

this is something I’ve been waiting for a long time. This is the core technology for peak load shaving in residential property. For example, it’s the middle of summer, you work at home or have a health condition which requires climate controlled environment. A diabetic is a good example. I need the house a little cooler in the summer and little warmer in the winter than most people. Not much 3-4° but that requires a significant amount of energy.

A bank of batteries could be used to power the peak load demand for air conditioning or heating instead of taking off of the grid at the worst possible time. Then, at night, it could be charged when the power demands are lower.

The really sad thing is that we could have had this technology running 10 or 15 years ago using gel cell batteries if it hadn’t been for the power companies fighting against net metering. Yes, the vast majority of the electrical system inefficiencies today exist because of the unwillingness of power companies to move forward with technological change.

In any case, I think that lead acid batteries are still the best option for this application because we don’t care about weight, only reliability, and capacity. Another nice feature of gel cell batteries that they do not exploding catch fire. They’re very stable, very well known technology that can be recycled easily and cheaply.

I’m of the same mind a Relliker on this one. The pic of the battery pack is the same old tech packaged in a shinny new box. At the present cost of these batteries I hold little hope that a system sized to power a whole house would cost less than the house in which it is to be installed. I would also bet that the boast of powering the whole house for a week is based on every device in it being based on the latest power efficient device there is to be had. In other words, F#@King expensive! Lead acid batteries are reliable, cheap, long lived, easy to recycle and provide a decade or more of service. So what if lithium ion batteries have three times the energy density.

Mike

http://xkcd.com/678/

Why is it when even a newl piece of the green power puzzle is born like 10 a-hats have to complain how bad the new item is.

What is that? Are they just afraid of change or that they can’t install it themselves because they don’t understand the technology?

I wish Panasonic their best in producing this. Being a solar panel user myself it would be nice to store some energy never used from the cells.

Hasn’t anyone on this forum ever studied the DIY off-grid housing movement in the US? There are folks all over the US who get a large percentage of their energy from their own wind and solar generators. They presently use physically large banks of lead acid batteries, so the whole point of the announcement is that the new technology may provide a higher energy density for use in these “battery sheds.” As noted, there is always a fire hazard associated with stored energy, but that is also true of hydrocarbon fuels. BTW, they also use heat collectors and heat reservoirs to provide hot water, heat pup chiller, and space heating, year round, with backup from gas, etc.

This is, don’t forget a Japanese house for a week – not everyone uses electricity like an American. Likely a day or so worth for a US house.

Still – electricity will be cheaper by night very soon in many places, so even something that costs $1000 and stores 20 kWh of electricity would be useful. But can that be done?
Right now, Lithium ion cells are $3 and store 9 watt hours, so $3000 would store 9 kwh. So a factor of 5 – 10 away from useful, right now.

Only if we think of energy fix differently, the coming of EV epoch might never be off in the future.
Under current capacity of electricity generation in America, it is said to accommodate comfortably 2 millions of EVs during nighttime. Although the typical power sources are predictable, certain sources are inefficiently forced to produce juice even at off-peak hours.

It reflects EVs are not simply able to take full advantage of the excess juice, but can make a considerable contribution to the forthcoming sustainable yet intermittent energy sources as a precious storage.

As with Nissan and the others, leasing and recycling battery pack is capable of making EVs affordable. Similarly, grasping energy industry, we could expedite the roll-out of EVs without hesitation.

Our energy future might hang on our different approach.

Thanks A Lot !

Vaporware… Vapor ware….Vapor ware.. SHOW ME THE BATTERY…ITS BS…

How nice it would be to be able to use the heat generated by those exploding batteries to heat your water or home?

Err… cool those batteries using your home’s water or circulating cooler air through the battery to cool it down?

Attention, environmentalists:

TANSTAAFL.

(There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.)

Product on the shelf or it didn’t happen.

When are you people going to figure out that you’re being played like fiddles? No product in hand, no story, period.

Yes, it’s vaporware at this point, but most of you miss why this would be revolutionary if it is feasible.

Solar can’t replace baseline power generation, because (duh!) it doesn’t work at night. You need to build about 3 kwh for every 1 kwh of baseline power for wind, because (duh) it’s not always very windy. But if you have large-scale storage, using variable sources like solar and wind for baseline becomes feasible. That’s big stuff.

m00t

Sorry Doc but you got some bad data. I moved off grid last year. 1000 sf cabin. We use about 450 KW Hr of electricity per month. (Forced air heating, Dishwasher, Washer, Dryer, Refrigerator and Freezer, 2 computers, copy machine and laser printer). I have a 3.5 KW solar systems with a 1 KW wind system. We have done fine.
While these batteries are intriguing provided they pan out their cost will be a major factor.
To use them you will need a good inverter that can also act as a charge controller if you are on the grid. If you plan on using solar you will need a separate charge controller to help maintain there charge. The number of charge cycles will be important also. To be useful they will need to have more longivity than the current lead-acid deep cycle batteries in use.

consumption depends on where you are, and particularly if you have electric hot water and stove/oven.

There are many areas of the US where 300 or more KW-hr/week are the norm.

Average US residential monthly power consumptions are located at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/esr/table5.html

Batteries to provide this kind of power for a week are simply not reasonable in cost, and particularly in life-cycle costs as deep discharge for maximum home power tends to destroy lithium (and most other solid electrode) cells quickly.

So your either have to double up on the batteries needed for lighter discharge and longer life or run a smaller number deeper with a shorter life-span. Either way, you lose.

1) Why use LION? You don’t need the highest possible power density for non-mobile applications like this.

2) We’re approaching a lithium shortage at high speed.

3) A week seems excessive if you just want to backstop your solar/wind system.

4) Why does every household have to generate its own power? I’d love to relocate my PV array to someplace where the sun shines more often and where somebody else could look after it and its battery backup for a management fee.

I have to admit i would be a little leary of all hype going on around solar. After reviewing many different programs and buy options my spouse and i decided i would take the plunge. We finished up getting solar without money down and we all immediatly started spending less the very first month is was installed. I must say that the advantages of solar look like real and I am very happy that we decided i would proceed with it.