Tesla’s new energy play – pv journal Worldwide

From pv journal print version 3/24

The annual SNEC photo voltaic exhibition in Shanghai is an exhausting affair. On his return from the 2015 occasion, seasoned vitality storage analyst Sam Wilkinson took a name from a journalist at The Instances newspaper. A drained Wilkinson offered what proved to be front-page evaluation.

The UK-based title was after Wilkinson’s tackle the brand new Tesla Powerwall, the American EV maker’s residential battery. The product had been revealed by Elon Musk, with trademark chutzpah, on social media.

“I used to be actually in a taxi on the best way dwelling from Heathrow Airport and the subsequent day I received a name that in some way the story had made the entrance web page,” mentioned Wilkinson, a director of unpolluted vitality expertise at S&P World Commodity Perception.

“It confirmed that there was this degree of curiosity within the thought of vitality storage. On the time it was a really nascent, area of interest, techy factor to do – to have a battery in your own home. Quick ahead, eight or 9 years and it has turn out to be a really nicely understood, widespread factor.”

The Instances was not alone in its enthusiasm for the Powerwall. “Modern, stylish, and unmistakably touched by that Elon Musk magic,” enthused pv journal when that includes the primary iteration of the Tesla Powerwall on its June 2015 cowl (see left). The battery got here at a value level far under rival merchandise. Musk mentioned the ten kWh Powerwall would retail for $3,500, with the 7 kWh mannequin going for $3,000.

“On the time I famous the worth of Tesla batteries was considerably cheaper than what we’ve seen available in the market, which might carry competitors amongst different suppliers and push costs down,” mentioned Wilkinson. “Which turned out to be comparatively true, ultimately.” By setting such an aggressively low value, Tesla blew open a beforehand nascent market section.

Subsequent technology

On the time, Tesla embodied the innovative in EVs and uber-geek cool. Powerwall 3, launched in 2024, would be the strongest iteration – providing backup energy even to massive properties. It grew to become out there to installers in the US on Feb. 16, with the transfer introduced on X (previously often called Twitter), Musk’s social media platform.

The Powerwall 3 was unveiled in Las Vegas on the RE+ commerce present, on Sept. 12, 2023. Whereas it has the identical storage capability because the Powerwall 2 – 13.5 kWh – a key differentiator is that it could possibly present greater than 50% extra energy, at 11.5 kW of steady energy. It’s a hybrid battery with the photo voltaic and battery inverter absolutely built-in.

At RE+, Tesla engineers highlighted that the Powerwall 3 affords installers faster set up by a collection of improvements. The brand new battery is smaller and lighter, albeit barely deeper. It’s 110 cm lengthy, 61 cm extensive, and 19.3 cm deep and its inverter, battery cells, and battery administration system weigh in at 130 kg.

To lighten the load, Tesla has additionally labored with companions to develop a “dolly” – to assist installers to elevate the hybrid battery up and onto partitions for mounting. That will look like a minor element however, crucially, it permits a single installer to repair the battery in place.

At $11,500, the Powerwall 3 is just not seeking to shake up the residential market based mostly on value, as its predecessor did. Nevertheless, the Tesla staff at RE+ had been eager to impress that faster set up will allow installers to hold out extra jobs, bringing down their labor prices.

Built-in system

Tesla’s in-house engineers developed the photo voltaic inverter contained in the Powerwall 3 – displaying the corporate’s rising technical proficiency. The product deploys six most energy level trackers (MPPTs), to optimize rooftop PV output.

“That has been an evolution of the [energy storage] area basically,” mentioned Wilkinson. “We name them ‘built-in programs,’ with batteries and inverters mixed collectively. The built-in product is clearly seeking to present lots of different performance and barely extra futuristic issues, like VPPs [virtual power plants] and programs that may reply to issues like electrical energy costs.”

The built-in method precludes retrofit purposes in properties with current rooftop arrays, which Tesla says it’ll proceed to serve with the Powerwall 2.

“It’s all concerning the Tesla model and so they have that distinctive place of being the place you’ll be able to go to get photo voltaic, storage, and an EV – and no-one else affords that full ecosystem,” mentioned Wilkinson.

In the US, Tesla is planning to promote the Powerwall 3 in a bespoke providing for owners. The corporate’s gross sales staff gives built-in solar-plus-storage quotes based mostly on a house’s measurement and energy consumption. For even bigger properties, as much as 4 Powerwalls could be put in in collection, providing a whopping 40 kW of energy.

“It isn’t fully remarkable to have three or 4 Powerwalls, within the States,” Wilkinson mentioned. “It isn’t an financial choice, it’s purely a backup energy play. And folks can pay for backup within the US as a result of grid outages are comparatively widespread, in comparison with Europe.”

Thunder Down Beneath

Sydney-based PV and battery retailer Pure Photo voltaic bought the world’s first Powerwall in January 2016. The corporate’s founder, Chris Williams, mentioned that whereas the primary Powerwall was largely for early adopters, the Powerwall 2 opened up extra of a mass market, with some 500,000 models bought globally. He mentioned the most recent model represents the subsequent part of the product’s evolution – which he described as an “fascinating and thrilling” one.

“It’s tackling a brand new market as a photo voltaic inverter and a battery,” mentioned Williams. “Having that multi functional ecosystem, with knowledge flowing from the Tesla app – and you’ll add an EV charger – I believe is the subsequent stage of ecosystem, from a buyer perspective.”

Australia is a big marketplace for Tesla, for its utility scale and distributed batteries and its EVs and chargers. With an unlimited and rising rooftop photo voltaic fleet, and energy outages more and more widespread because of excessive climate occasions, there’s a rising appreciation of backup energy provision by residential solar-plus-storage.

Round 600,000 properties within the state of Victoria misplaced energy on Feb. 13, some for days, after a storm downed a significant transmission line.

EUPD Analysis screens EV charging and solar-plus-storage installers in Australia and Europe. EUPD analyst Finn Bee mentioned that the Tesla residential EV charger has constantly had the best installer satisfaction ranking of any model. On the subject of batteries in Europe, nonetheless, there’s extra of a combined image.

“Our installer monitor, for which we survey greater than 1,600 installers in chosen markets throughout Europe and Australia, reveals that Tesla has misplaced some market penetration however continues to be one of many best-known manufacturers in lots of international locations,” mentioned Bee. “They’re doing notably nicely in Australia and Italy, two of the strongest markets for storage however are lagging in Germany, for instance.”

Future outlook

Whereas Tesla helped to create the residential vitality storage market section in 2015, the dynamic in 2024 is one among oversupply. The residential section in the US is depressed on the again of web metering reforms in key photo voltaic states. In Europe, inventories stay excessive.

“The market has cooled off in 2023,” mentioned Wilkinson. “We’ve now received a fairly grim state of affairs, particularly in Europe. Each firm, particularly the newer Chinese language entrants, was transport, into Europe, loopy volumes when the energy-crisis increase was underneath manner.”

S&P World forecasts incremental residential vitality storage development within the coming years, with barely greater than 17 GWh of installations anticipated globally in 2024.