Tesla Is Inviting Its Energy Customers In California To Join Its Virtual Power Plant
Tesla is inviting its Energy customers living in California to join Tesla’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and help stabilize the grid. Virtual power plants aggregate the capacities of energy resources and enhance power generation along with trading or selling power on the electricity market. Back in 2020, our own Steve Hanley shared that Tesla was expanding into both solar microgrids and virtual power plants. Steve wrote about Tesla’s virtual power plant plan in the UK at the time. Less than a year later, Tesla is now setting one up in California.
Tesla noted that its Virtual Power Plant in California is in the beta stage and pointed out that the California grid operator predicted that there will be a continued need for Californians to support it through the end of this year. Tesla’s invite encourages its customers to help create the largest distributed battery system in the world while avoiding dependence on the least efficient fossil fuel power plants.
Once customers have opted in, Tesla will dispatch their Powerwalls when the grid needs support, without risking customers’ own energy security. Tesla listed several benefits of participation in its new Virtual Power Plant.
Benefits
- Exporting Credits During Peak Periods. Customers don’t need to make any changes to their home energy usage behavior, and if they’re part of a net energy metering program, they could earn credit for their energy that is sent to the grid during events.
- Cleaning The Power Grid. When the grid is in critical need of additional electricity, the least efficient fossil-fueled- generators come online. With Tesla dispatching customers’ Powerwall during the critical need, this helps to reduce dependence on those generators and helps clean the grid.
- Stabilizing California’s Grid. By opting in, Tesla Energy customers will help California reduce or even avoid blackouts during severe emergencies. Powerwall can keep the lights on for all in the community.
- United as A Tesla Community. The Tesla community is pretty amazing, but this takes that level of community even higher. Tesla Energy customers will team up with other Powerwall owners who are helping Tesla to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Customers will help build the largest distributed battery in the world — with over 50,000 Powerwalls.
- Energy Security. Powerwall customers will not lose any of their energy security. Instead, Powerwall will discharge during VPP events but will not discharge below your backup reserve. Customers can adjust their backup reserve to control how much their contribution to the VPP is.
Tesla noted that eligible Powerwall owners will be able to enroll in its Virtual Power Plant starting on July 22, 2021. Details on program eligibility will be announced soon.
Thanks to the $10,000 Polestar Clean Vehicle Incentive introduced last week, 2024 Polestar 2 lease prices are now over $120 a month cheaper.
CarsDirect reports that through May 31, the 2024 Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor can be leased for $299 for 27 months with $3,299 due at signing.
The auto research portal says that’s a $50 drop in the monthly payment with $2,050 less required at signing. As a result, the effective cost fell $126, from $547 per month to $421 before taxes & fees.
The Polestar 2 Dual Motor – list price $55,300 – is a much better deal to lease than the Single Motor model – list price $49,900 – because amazingly, they have the same lease price. That’s basically a free upgrade to the Dual Motor model.
The Polestar 2 first made its debut in 2019 as the automaker’s first fully electric car. It launched in mid-2020 and the milestone 150,000th car rolled off the assembly line in August 2023.
The Polestar 2 is expected to be phased out in 2027, and company says the Polestar 7 will succeed it.
Click here to find a local dealer that may have the Polestar 2 in stock. –affiliate*
If you’re an electric vehicle owner, charge up your car at home with rooftop solar panels. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing on solar, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –ad*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Elon Musk has given an update with an outline for Tesla’s upcoming Full Self-Driving (FSD) software updates.
With FSD v12 and the upcoming launch of Tesla’s dedicated Robotaxi, there’s a lot of excitement around Tesla’s self-driving effort.
Musk is again in the too-familiar position of predicting that the automaker is close to releasing a true self-driving system, but the path to get there is still far from clear.
Now the CEO is providing some new comments on the upcoming release schedule for FSD:
“12.4 has almost completely retrained models. The final touches are for comfort, as it sometimes accelerates or brakes too fast for most people’s taste.”
Tesla FSD drivers are currently on 12.3.6 and the .4 update is expected to be a bigger step change, which Musk appears to confirm by saying that Tesla “completely retrained” the models.
The CEO recently said that Tesla is no longer constrained by training compute power after bringing more capacity online, giving the FSD team more opportunities to retrain neural nets with increasingly cleaner data.
Musk then continued about Tesla’s upcoming updates:
12.5 and 12.6 are in various stages of testing. We’re getting into rare, complex situations, for example: going down a narrow, one-way road, encountering a road closure and having to reverse out to find a new route. That closure also needs to be communicated to the rest of the fleet, so you don’t get a whole bunch of Teslas stuck down a road.
There’s no timeline for these upcoming updates beyond the fact that they are currently in internal testing, but Musk did say that v12.4 could come to the Tesla fleet as soon next week.
Electrek’s Take
Again, I’ve been impressed with v12.3.3-4. I’ve just got v12.3.6, but I haven’t had time to test it yet. I plan to do that this weekend. Also, I’ve been saying that if I start seeing decent improvements with the upcoming updates, I think I’ll start to see a clearer path to Tesla finally delivering on its promise – or at least a level 4 self-driving system.
However, as usual, when talking about FSD and especially when praising the system, I think it’s important to remind everyone that the keyword in ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ is ‘Supervised.’ Drivers need to remain attentive at all times and ready to take control.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment12 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports6 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports1 month agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company