RenewEconomy
Last week, the sprawling 4 hectare Bakken Hale estate, a private residence on the island of Hawaii owned by the founder of the medical device giant Medtronics group, installed a big solar array and battery storage system that will make it the largest renewables-based off-grid system for a private home.
The Bakken Hale installation includes a 170kW solar array and 1MWh of Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries from US battery developer Aquion Energy. It will serve an average load of 23kW and peak load of 42kW (this is some house!). Just to compare, the average load for suburban homes is less than 2kW.
The estate is currently powered entirely by generators fuelled with propane generators, more commonly used with stoves and blow-torches. That costs it around $US50c/kWh. The installers say that the estate will have around 3-days of full autonomy, and the back-up generators will only be needed around 3 per cent of the time.
The estate is located on the environmentally sensitive Kona Coast, and owner Earl Bakken, 91, says he wanted to demonstrate that using a solar and battery-powered microgrid is the best solution now.
“This installation will enable us to meet our around-the-clock power needs with solar generation and will reduce our fossil fuel usage by 97 percent,” Bakken says. Bakken knows something about battery technology because he is credited with developing the portable pace-maker and apparently wears one himself. He says he chose Aquion’s battery products because they are non-toxic, and long-lasting.
Jonathan Matusky, the product manager for Aquion Energy, says demand for battery storage is growing, and Hawaii and Australia are the two leading markets, because of their high electricity prices, big solar resource, and the independent nature of consumers.
“A lot of our batteries sold right now are for off grid residential solar space,” he told the Australian Energy Conference in Sydney. And Australia is one of its biggest market, accounting for around 1/6 of the 5MWh of storage it has delivered to date. A new delivery in Australia soon will take the local installation to around 1MWh.
“Australia is going to be on leading edge of energy storage adoption. Hawaii is similar, and you see customers deciding to take their homes completely off the grid, because of how expensive the electricity is, how cheap the solar is, and how fed up they are with utility.”
“This market is very much real and it makes sense for customers. And it will open up in next year or so.”
This article was first published at RenewEconomy.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of One Step Off The Grid, and also edits and founded Renew Economy and The Driven. He has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
This post was published on June 4, 2015 2:40 pm
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Just think how much their CO2 emissions could be reduced if they actually managed their consumption somewhat. I hope no one is deluding themselves that this is somehow "green"
depends on how many people there live?
If it was just one, ok you got a point, but if there are 10 it's a completely different picture. Probably also has got a Tesla or two that need to be charged..
Fair point, I guess I assumed it was some rich guy's palace. I hope I'm wrong...
It is a rich guys palace, as it says in the article "...a private residence".
Doesn't mean he hasn't got a big family and a few staff living there. Or lots of animals, or lots of golf carts? This could be CO2 neutral, but we don't know, not enough info form the article.
Nevertheless its a remarkable system for a private house. Puts my 3kW to shame...
CO2 neutral? So the enormous solar array and batteries were made, transported, installed and maintained using renewable energy? I'm doubtful. It is vital, when assessing whether an activity is green, to assess the complete cycle -- this includes the manufacturing costs of the equipment.
This person's house is using 20x what an average Western house is using -- an amount that is already incredibly wasteful and probably unsustainable (solar energy with batteries or not).
I understand the economics of off-grid energy -- I can see why people do it. But can we please dispense with calling it "green". Wasteful consumption is wasteful consumption, whether it comes from solarPV and batteries or a diesel genset.
There are lots of ways to reduce waste.
Ball point pens for example, can be undone by hand to reveal a "cartridge". But in AUS we cannot buy a new cartridge when the ink runs out, we have to buy a whole new pen!
Such waste.
It should be like Gillette Mach 3.
So we have some rich dude who was either going to produce power by propane generators or by solar power. Knowing he is going to be using that power no matter what the power source which one is better?
Yes it would be better if he chose to live as a hermit and just used 2kWh/day but it ain't happening Mr Wall.
I get your point about possible wasteful consumption. I say possible... Because we need more information to make an assessment.
I do think it is best to start with the sources of energy consumption to determine the scope for reducing them before considering solar panels. Retrofits of insulation for example to reduce the need for air con fir instance.
But in the end it is far preferable to obtain energy from low emissions sources, and yes acknowledge the argument about embodied energy but overall I think it is a commendable initiative that is far better than the "business as usual" alternative of a high consumption, high emissions property.
Yeah, 4 hectares is almost 10 acres. I bet the estate has the old guy's children and grandchildren living there, plus a bunch of indoor and outdoor staff.
Good info here.
U$0.5/kwh is the cost of electricity from propane powered generators. So that is the max the grid in AUS can charge apartment dwellers.
Besides not burning the propane, the rich guy is supporting this market, like the Germans did with their initially crazy high FIT, helping it cruise down the cost curve to where it is out competing kerosene in the villages of Africa and other places.
Bulldoze the sensitive environment to make way for a sprawling solar farm? Why not -everyone else is doing it.