Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

NedS

Sorry I don't have a link, but my Tesla App is informing me that the one millionth Powerwall battery was built on 2nd June 2025, and has since been installed. A total of 1,000,856 Powerwall’s have now been installed globally, totalling 6.7GW / 17.3TWh

Edit: one more commissioned in the time it took me to write this post!

QrizB

NedS said:

Sorry I don't have a link, but my Tesla App is informing me that the one millionth Powerwall battery was built on 2nd June 2025, and has since been installed. A total of 1,000,856 Powerwall’s have now been installed globally, totalling 6.7GW / 17.3TWh

Edit: one more commissioned in the time it took me to write this post!

Impressive numbers!

Not least as it implies that the average Powerwall can store 17MWh of electricity. Maybe some mistake in the calcs? Or is that the total amount of electricity they've collectively stored, to date?

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

NedS said:

Sorry I don't have a link, but my Tesla App is informing me that the one millionth Powerwall battery was built on 2nd June 2025, and has since been installed. A total of 1,000,856 Powerwall’s have now been installed globally, totalling 6.7GW / 17.3TWh

Edit: one more commissioned in the time it took me to write this post!

Impressive numbers!

Not least as it implies that the average Powerwall can store 17MWh of electricity. Maybe some mistake in the calcs? Or is that the total amount of electricity they've collectively stored, to date?

Assuming you also meant 17kWh, then yes, could be a double typo and was meant to be 13.7GWh?

NedS

QrizB said:

NedS said:

Sorry I don't have a link, but my Tesla App is informing me that the one millionth Powerwall battery was built on 2nd June 2025, and has since been installed. A total of 1,000,856 Powerwall’s have now been installed globally, totalling 6.7GW / 17.3TWh

Edit: one more commissioned in the time it took me to write this post!

Impressive numbers!

Not least as it implies that the average Powerwall can store 17MWh of electricity. Maybe some mistake in the calcs? Or is that the total amount of electricity they've collectively stored, to date?

Yes, it's "fleet energy delivered". The data is proudly sitting at the top of the product landing page here: https://www.tesla.com/en_gb/powerwall

6.7 GW Fleet Battery Power

17.3TWh Fleet Energy delivered

NigeWick

Martyn1981 said:

was meant to be 13.7GWh?

My PW2 is 13.4 kWh

debitcardmayhem

Starmer overrides Miliband 
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/keir-starmer-overrules-ed-miliband-060000073.html

QrizB

A (sligtly techy) story from last month that I've only just seen:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/grid-scale-battery-scotland

A grid-scale battery in the Scottish Highlands got a chance to prove its mettle in March when, 11 days after it started up, a massive wood-burning generator in Northern England shut down unexpectedly. Suddenly 1,877 megawatts of supply was missing, causing the 50-hertz frequency of the grid’s alternating current to crash below its 49.8-Hz operating limit in just 8 seconds.
But the new 200-MW battery station leapt into action within milliseconds, releasing extra power to help arrest the frequency collapse and keep the grid running.

The full article is at the link and gives more details of the battery farm and the technology involved.

QrizB

debitcardmayhem said:

Starmer overrides Miliband 
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/keir-starmer-overrules-ed-miliband-060000073.html

Starmer favours an AI data centre over a blue hydrogen plant? Honestly, neither are "green" and I'm not sure which is worse.

ed110220

Another good report from Ember on the global energy transition, this time on the growth of wind and solar in Brazil: Wind and solar generate over a third of Brazil’s electricity for the first month on record | Ember

Wind and solar output has grown faster than electricity demand growth, driving down fossil fuel use and emissions.

Martyn1981

ed110220 said:

Another good report from Ember on the global energy transition, this time on the growth of wind and solar in Brazil: Wind and solar generate over a third of Brazil’s electricity for the first month on record | Ember

Wind and solar output has grown faster than electricity demand growth, driving down fossil fuel use and emissions.

Thanks for posting that, so much good news.

I see that WWS (wind, water (hydro) and solar) are around 75% of generation now, and that they have strong bio-energy generation too. Wind and solar %age of leccy supply is up ~20% in 7yrs and looks like they are accelerating. And despite a huge growth in leccy demand that suggests ~100% RE by early 2030's is possible.

Leading on to my particular interest about countries like Brazil, with huge existing hydro (48% of leccy last year). I always wonder if they already have the 'battery' storage needed for 100% RE. Assuming the hydro can demand follow* when wind and solar are high/low, then expanding wind and solar should be far, far easier.

*Presumably, there are some limitations on hydro, if only to maintain certain river flows, so max and min discharge levels. But even that can sometimes be solved with a smaller catchment lagoon acting as a buffer.