Monday, September 8, 2014

USA, Nevada:

Can Tesla Power Its Gigafactory with Renewables Alone? (engineering.com)

Reno is no stranger to geothermal energy - it has several plants in operation already. The newest has a 20 MW capacity. Let’s say Tesla goes small and builds one with only half of that capacity. That 10 MW plant would produce 240 MWh of daily geothermal electricity.


Tesla recently announced that its Gigafactory, which will produce electric car batteries, will be located near Reno Nevada. More interesting to me, being an engineer and renewable energy advocate, is Tesla’s commitment to renewable energy. In his press conference, Elon Musk stated that the factory will produce all of its own energy using a combination of solar, wind, and geothermal. That’s a tall order, so let’s look at the numbers to see how feasible that is.

The numbers don’t lie. The site could realistically produce more than 2900 MWh of renewable electricity each day ... 20% more than it needs. These are conservative estimates on production and worst-case estimates on consumption, and it’s clear that there’s enough renewable energy to run the plant with some to spare.

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