Tesla Austin

[Cujet]

So, a 1.6square meter solar panel is 265W, so we get 165W per square meter. This yields 69 million watts; 69,457kW; 69MW of capacity.

Despite the stunningly large surface area of the factory, 69MW is only enough to charge about 60 Tesla trucks in full sun, with each truck using a "Megacharger".

Also, you are 100% correct, the power to run that factory will, on average, come from conventional power plants for 18.7 hours of each day.
(Austin's solar insolation, ie, annualized sunlight hours, for "fixed solar panels" is 5.3 hours per day)

EDIT: Many states are now noticing a significant uptick in Natural Gas consumption due to the fickle nature of wind and solar, and the necessary use of less efficient but responsive NG peaker plants. Solar has resulted in more fuel use in many cases.

 

[wag123]

Giga Austin, once ramped, will have well over 1M annual capacity, will provide 20K direct and 100K indirect jobs.

I don't know where they are going to find 20K employees to work there with the unemployment rate in Austin at only 2.9%. Then there are all of the other companies either moving here or greatly expanding their presence (like Samsung, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Oracle). Furthermore, I don't know where all of these $18-$22/hr employees are going to live given that the median priced home in Austin is now selling for $450k and 1br apartments are renting for $1200/mo and up. There is an affordable housing crisis in Austin. Tesla's jobs are not going to be high paying jobs, lower labor cost is one of the reasons why Elon wanted to move out of California. Our cost of living has skyrocketed and is now among the highest in the country, and this is before any of these companies are fully operational.

 

[Vercingetorix]

I don't know where they are going to find 20K employees to work there with the unemployment rate in Austin at only 2.9%. Then there are all of the other companies either moving here or greatly expanding their presence (like Samsung, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Oracle). Furthermore, I don't know where all of these $18-$22/hr employees are going to live given that the median priced home in Austin is now selling for $450k and 1br apartments are renting for $1200/mo and up. There is an affordable housing crisis in Austin. Tesla's jobs are not going to be high paying jobs, lower labor cost is one of the reasons why Elon wanted to move out of California. Our cost of living has skyrocketed and is now among the highest in the country, and this is before any of these companies are fully operational.

Robots. Lots of robots.

Musk's bets on Tesla: human-like robots and self-driving cars

Tesla's most important products this year and next will not be cars, Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Wednesday, but software that drives them autonomously and a humanoid robot.

www.reuters.com

 

[OVERKILL]

@OVERKILL respectfully, that's not exactly what I said. I said the primary source but I did not say the roof panels were the only panels.
Based on what I have read, Tesla has not disclosed the size and spec of the final system.
This is similar to Giga Nevada. Will solar be the primary source? I guess time will tell.
But your calculations show that the installation would be substantial.
Giga Nevada already features a 3.2 MW system despite being only partially complete.
My understanding is Tesla pulled back on earlier expectations.

Well, there's a gaping chasm between 3.2MW and 69MW, lol.

We don't know if they are going to cover the whole roof or not, but the point is, they'd need more than 3x the size of that entire building to match the energy use of the facility (in a net metering fashion) with the production via solar panels. So yes, 30% (again, using generous figures in my calculations) is substantial, but it's a far cry from:

I understand the solar panels are being installed; Austin will be primarily solar powered.

Which is the claim I was addressing with the math shown.

Until we have evidence of some massive solar farms also being constructed around the facility, the claim has no legs, and even then, even if they went to all that effort, if the facility runs 24/7, the claim is still hot garbage because it's a net usage/export calculation with the grid (gas and wind in Texas) being the source when the sun isn't providing.

We could also calculate how much solar and storage they'd need to build to in fact have the place primarily be powered by solar. I'm game to do those calculations, but I won't waste my time if you aren't interested in seeing them.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Here is the year to date data on Tesla. I hope those new plants can turn a profit. Currently trading at 282 times earnings.

 

[JeffKeryk]

 

[PimTac]

How much of the 2100 acres of this site will be solar?

 

[OVERKILL]

How much of the 2100 acres of this site will be solar?

That's an excellent question.

If we look at Upton solar, it's 1,900 acres and 212MW, so it would produce ~520GWh/year. So basically, if they covered the building, and the entire property with panels they'd be able to make the claim that in terms of net power, the facility was powered by solar. But of course the reality is that the majority of the time that would still not be the case without massive amounts of storage.

 

[JeffKeryk]

How much of the 2100 acres of this site will be solar?

Based on what I have read, Tesla has not disclosed the size and spec of the final system.
Even if they did, their plans change. Giga Nevada is a prime example. Nevada stopped short of their original plan, and now calls the project incomplete.
Tesla is installing panels on the roof, but we cannot assume it will cover the entire roof, nor do we know what, if anything, is next.

 

[PimTac]

Here is another example but it reads as number of solar panels instead of acreage. This is the Apple solar farm in Prineville Oregon which helps power their data center nearby. 160,000 solar panels provide 69.9MWdc.

I know, it’s not a straight comparison.

Avangrid Renewables celebrates renewable power partnership supporting Apple Prineville Data Center

Avangrid Renewables says it’s celebrating a growing renewable energy partnership, recognizing the newly-completed Montague Wind Farm, in Gilliam County, Oregon, and continued output of the Gala Solar project, in Crook County, Oregon. The facilities will supply renewable energy to Apple through...

www.appleworld.today

 

[OVERKILL]

Here is another example but it reads as number of solar panels instead of acreage. This is the Apple solar farm in Prineville Oregon which helps power their data center nearby. 160,000 solar panels provide 69.9MWdc.

I know, it’s not a straight comparison.

Avangrid Renewables celebrates renewable power partnership supporting Apple Prineville Data Center

Avangrid Renewables says it’s celebrating a growing renewable energy partnership, recognizing the newly-completed Montague Wind Farm, in Gilliam County, Oregon, and continued output of the Gala Solar project, in Crook County, Oregon. The facilities will supply renewable energy to Apple through...

www.appleworld.today

Yep, and that'll be a commercial install so the ground mount panels will take up more space than doing them end-to-end on a roof:

But of course they will have a significantly higher capacity factor. 14,482,314.84sq-ft is 332.5 acres.

Also, it is 56MW AC:

https://www.avangrid.com/wps/wcm/co...-09107c64-318a-4133-9795-5d2b17576606-l-Tbjky

Oregon has a solar capacity factor of ~24%, so our 56MW yields ~118GWh/year.

 

[PimTac]

Oregon has a solar capacity factor of ~24%, so our 56MW yields ~118GWh/year.

Is this figure directly related to Prineville? Oregon has a very diverse climate and geology. Prineville is high desert.

Apple also has a wind farm there as well. Facebook and Google also have data centers there.

Twenty some odd years ago that area was nothing but snakes and sagebrush.

 

[OVERKILL]

Is this figure directly related to Prineville? Oregon has a very diverse climate and geology. Prineville is high desert.

Apple also has a wind farm there as well. Facebook and Google also have data centers there.

Twenty some odd years ago that area was nothing but snakes and sagebrush.

Just the average CF for the state, being desert or not isn't going to have much of an impact, it is latitude. Arizona is 28.5% in comparison because it is much further south, same with New Mexico at 28%. Montana is 22%.

These figures are directly from the WECC.

Yes, I saw mention of the small wind farm as well, I'm only doing solar because that's what the discussion was about.

 

[PimTac]

Just the average CF for the state, being desert or not isn't going to have much of an impact, it is latitude. Arizona is 28.5% in comparison because it is much further south, same with New Mexico at 28%. Montana is 22%.

These figures are directly from the WECC.

Yes, I saw mention of the small wind farm as well, I'm only doing solar because that's what the discussion was about.

I understand. The state west of the Cascades is like Seattle with cloudy skies most of the time. Maybe the clouds don’t affect solar performance? Portland as a example would be more like Seattle and Vancouver BC where as Prineville would be more like Reno or Phoenix.

 

[OVERKILL]

I understand. The state west of the Cascades is like Seattle with cloudy skies most of the time. Maybe the clouds don’t affect solar performance? Portland as a example would be more like Seattle and Vancouver BC where as Prineville would be more like Reno or Phoenix.

Clouds definitely do have an impact. The company provides no specific data on performance for the site, so I just had to use the state average for the calculation. Some of the operators do provide useful information, but it tends to vary wildly.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Certainly clouds hammer solar output. I take a look at the 15 kw nameplate output of our local community hall solar array and it can be as little as 20% of maximum on a cloudy day.

 

[OVERKILL]

Certainly clouds hammer solar output. I take a look at the 15 kw nameplate output of our local community hall solar array and it can be as little as 20% of maximun on a cloudy day.

Yep, it was overcast here today (installed capacity is 478MW):

 

[PandaBear]

EDIT: Many states are now noticing a significant uptick in Natural Gas consumption due to the fickle nature of wind and solar, and the necessary use of less efficient but responsive NG peaker plants. Solar has resulted in more fuel use in many cases.

So to address this problem, it is wise to store the excess wind and solar in batteries. However since we are going to lose 25% round trip (give or take) efficiency if we put it back in the grid, it is better to use it if you need to use it with a battery anyways, like in an EV.

So, the conclusion is, let people in the community have excessive battery capacity, charge when they are cheap, use gasoline if it is expensive. Plug in hybrid will likely be the long term solution.