Powerwall to help Tesla fill Li-ion Gigafactory

Tesla has announced the Powerwall, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed to store energy at a residential level for load shifting, backup power and self-consumption of solar power generation. The Powerwall consists of Tesla's lithium-ion battery pack, liquid thermal control system and software that receives dispatch commands from a solar inverter. The unit mounts seamlessly on a wall and is integrated with the local grid to harness excess power and give customers the flexibility to draw energy from their own reserve. Tesla also announced additional battery back-up systems for business, commercial and utility-scale applications ranging up to 10MWh.

Powerwall can provide a number of different benefits to the customer including: Load shifting – The battery can provide financial savings to its owner by charging during low rate periods when demand for electricity is lower and discharging during more expensive rate periods when electricity demand is higher; Increasing self-consumption of solar power generation – The battery can store surplus solar energy not used at the time it is generated and use that energy later when the sun is not shining; and Back-up power – Assuring power in the event of an outage, the Powerwall Home Battery increases the capacity for a household’s solar consumption, while also offering backup functionality during grid outages.

The Powerwall is available in 10kWh, optimized for backup applications or 7kWh optimized for daily use applications. Both can be connected with solar or grid and both can provide backup power. The 10kWh Powerwall is optimized to provide backup when the grid goes down, providing power for your home when you need it most. When paired with solar power, the 7kWh Powerwall can be used in daily cycling to extend the environmental and cost benefits of solar into the night when sunlight is unavailable.

Tesla’s selling price to installers is $3500 for 10kWh and $3000 for 7kWh. (Price excludes inverter and installation.) Deliveries begin in late Summer. Powerwall specs: Wall Mounted Indoor/Outdoor; Works with growing list of inverters; 7kWh or 10kWh sizes initially offered; continuous power rating is 2kW; peak rating is 3kW; efficiency if over 92%; the operating temperature range: -20C (-4F) to 43C (110F); these units measure, 1300mm (H) x 860mm (W) x 180mm (D) and are offered with a 10-year warranty.

Tesla also announced the initial channel partners for the Powerwall: TreeHouse, a sustainable home improvement store, is collaborating with Tesla to sell the Powerwall home battery. “For the first time, running your home on a battery will be affordable and easy,” says TreeHouse co-founder and president Jason Ballard. “I think in the near future, having a battery in your home will be as normal as having a water heater or a dishwasher.” Ballard added, “This just takes us one step closer to being able to power homes completely without the use of fossil fuels.”

SolarEdge, a leader in the global PV inverter market, and Tesla partnered for the joint development of a PV storage and backup power solution for the worldwide residential solar market. Building on SolarEdge’s proven DC optimized inverter proven and Tesla's leading automotive-grade battery technology, the solution will require only a single SolarEdge inverter to manage both PV and storage functions. The system is designed for efficient, outdoor installation and includes remote monitoring and troubleshooting to keep operations and maintenance costs low.

Founded in 2006, SolarEdge provides an intelligent inverter solution that has changed the way power is harvested and managed in solar photovoltaic systems. The SolarEdge DC optimized inverter system maximizes power generation at the individual PV module-level while lowering the cost of energy produced by the solar PV system. Since beginning commercial shipments in 2010, SolarEdge has shipped more than 1.3 Gigawatt (‘‘GW’’) of its DC optimized inverter systems, including over 220,000 inverters, its products have been installed in PV systems in more than 73 countries, and more than 100,000 systems are monitored in its cloud-based monitoring portal.

Green Mountain Power. "We are excited to bring Tesla's Powerwall to our customers. The Powerwall offers greater energy independence for customers, and offers GMP an opportunity to reduce peak demand on our system, which saves our customers money," said GMP President and CEO Mary Powell. "This is a great example of how GMP, as Vermont's Energy Company of the Future, is empowering customers to have more control over their energy choices while saving money and increasing reliability."

GMP will begin receiving Powerwalls in October and rapidly deploy them to customers in Rutland, the Energy City of the Future, and then statewide. GMP will partner with customers by offering product incentives combined with on-bill financing to ensure customers can access these products and deliver the full value they bring to the grid.

Based on the powertrain architecture and components of Tesla electric vehicles, Tesla energy storage systems for business deliver broad application compatibility and streamlined installation by integrating batteries, power electronics, thermal management and controls into a turn key system. Tesla’s energy storage allows businesses to capture the full potential of their facility’s solar arrays by storing excess generation for later use and delivering solar power at all times. Business Storage anticipates and discharges stored power during a facility’s times of highest usage, reducing the demand charge component of the energy energy bills.

Energy storage for business is designed to: Maximize consumption of on-site clean power; Avoid peak demand charges; Buy electricity when it’s cheapest; Get paid by utility or intermediate service providers for participating in grid services; and Back up critical business operations in the event of a power outage.

“We’ve been working closely with Tesla for the past year to drive innovative applications of high-capacity battery technology in data center applications with the ultimate goal of reducing the technical barriers limiting widespread adoption of renewables in the grid,” said James Hamilton, Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services. “Batteries are important for both data center reliability and as enablers for the efficient application of renewable power. They help bridge the gap between intermittent production, from sources like wind, and the data center’s constant power demands. We're excited to roll out a 4.8 megawatt hour pilot of Tesla’s energy storage batteries in our US West (Northern California) Region. This complements our strategy to use renewable energy to power our global infrastructure.”

For utility scale systems, 100kWh battery blocks are grouped to scale from 500kWh to 10MWh+. These systems are capable of 2hr or 4hr continuous net discharge power using grid tied bi-directional inverters. Systems support applications including peak shaving, load shifting and demand response for commercial customers while offering, renewable firming and a variety of grid services at utility scales.

Tesla Utility Storage is designed to: Firm up renewable generation by reconciling the intermittency of power from these sources and storing excess capacity to dispatch when it’s needed. Increase resource capacity. Utility Storage acts as on-demand distributed power generation, contributing to the overall generating capacity while adding resiliency to the grid. Ramp Control. Utility Storage can act as a buffer while the power output from a large generation source is ramping up or down, delivering power instantly to smoothly transition output to the required level. Improve power quality by preventing fluctuations from propagating to downstream loads. Defer costly and time-consuming infrastructure upgrades. And manage peak demand by deploying power within seconds or milliseconds.