Tesla Just Took Its First Step Toward Obliterating The Power Companies

[bananas]

6. The OP links to a really good second article

The article in the OP says:

A report from the Rocky Mountain Institute released prior to Tesla's announcement (spotted by GTM) was even more extreme about the possibilities for cheaper storage.

It links to this GTM article which is definitely worth browsing through, especially if you like charts and graphs:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/where-and-when-customers-may-start-leaving-the-grid

Report: Solar Paired With Storage Is a ‘Real, Near and Present’ Threat to Utilities

Is the solar-storage combination a deadly one for traditional power companies?
Stephen Lacey
February 26, 2014

In October 2012, as Superstorm Sandy rocked the East Coast, 75 residents gathered in the Midtown Community School in Bayonne, New Jersey.

The elementary school was operating as an emergency shelter, giving people who were stuck in the severely flooded town a place to stay dry. But the school was much more than a shelter -- it was an experiment in hybrid solar photovoltaics that may herald a coming structural change in the power sector.

<snip>

And it's not just emergency backup that makes storage attractive. Now that fast-responding systems like flywheels and lithium-ion batteries can get paid for frequency regulation services in PJM or help reduce onsite demand charges for commercial facilities, storage is emerging as a viable economic alternative.

In one case, Advanced Solar Products was able to pay for a commercial storage system and inverter through frequency regulation payments -- actually making the cost of a hybrid solar-storage system lower than solar alone.

"That, to us, seemed magical, and it told us we could provide this service for a low cost," said Rawlings.

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