The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental nonprofit Resilient Palisades to deliver a weekly “green tip” to our readers. This week’s tip was written by Doug Macmillan.
In 2019 the California Public Utilities Commission ordered significant amounts of new renewables and storage, which will result in a tenfold increase in batteries coming online over the next year—and you can be a part of something Tesla has up their sleeve.
If you have solar and Tesla Powerwalls, not only are you immune to blackouts but you can also join the community of over 50,000 California Powerwall owners to create the world’s largest virtual power plant. Coming soon to your Powerwall firmware is an upgrade that will allow Tesla and LADWP to feed power back into the grid when there are power outages. This way, the power plants are not called into action to fill the shortfall.
Distributed grid power supplies (including microgrids) are not only robust, they are more efficient. Transmitting power over wires generates heat and the further you transmit, the more you lose. California loses 9% of its electricity in heat from the powerplant to your house, so if you use the power where you generate, you’re wasting less energy as well.
This technology is already in use in South Australia where it has stabilized the grid from fires, lightning strikes and power plant failures. It does this so quickly (milliseconds) that people do not realize there has been a power plant or distribution failure, according to Utility Dive.
If you have solar and Tesla batteries, you can join the program by searching “Tesla join the California Powerwall.”
Tesla does not profit from this. And the use of power from your batteries is so infrequent and minimal that battery life is not affected.
By remaining connected to the grid when I could island, I provide power for others every day and stabilize the grid.
Questions? Contact me at dougmacmillan1@me.com. Or, for the first three Sundays in October, stop by the Resilient Palisades’ farmers market table, just outside of Starbucks.
Resilient Palisades’ Clean Energy Resilience team is launching a Pali microgrid in our community. Working with a UC Berkeley energy consultant, we will soon be providing Palisadians the best vendors to install solar and/or storage batteries at the lowest possible prices. Tell us about your family’s needs by completing the survey at resilientpalisades.org/survey.
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