Tesla battery – power for your home
Good news for consumers! Tesla CEO, Elon Musk has excitedly announced their upcoming new product – the Tesla Battery.
Tesla is currently working on a battery that can power your home and perhaps help the large-scale utilities to store energy more resourcefully.
Even though Tesla hasn’t shipped nearly as many cars this quarter as it had initially projected, CEO Elon Musk remained upbeat during the earnings call. He excitedly announced details about a brand new product – a consumer battery pack for the home.
The design of the battery has been completed and production should take off in six months. The date for unveiling the new unit has not been decided on yet. However, Musk is very pleased with the result, voicing his excitement for the project and calling the pack “really great”.
“It’s really great. I’m really excited about it,” says CEO Elon Musk.
During last year’s earnings call, Musk laid out his ambition to create a useful item that could live in consumers’ homes, instead of in their cars. Musk explained, “We are trying to figure out what would be a cool stationary (battery) pack. Some will be like the Model S pack: something flat, 5 inches off the wall, wall-mounted, with a beautiful cover, an integrated bi-directional inverter, and plug and play.”
Tesla’s chief technical officer, JB Straubel added, “The long-term demand for stationary energy storage is extraordinary. We’ve done a huge amount of effort there and have talked to major utilities and energy service companies.” The plan is now much closer to a reality that can now be shared with the public.
There is still no price set for the Tesla battery, although charging technology could ultimately save you money on your electric bill. Even though many of today’s homes are solely reliant on the electricity grid, the release of cheap solar panels means it’s has never been easier to generate your own energy.
If Tesla’s stationary battery takes off, it could change the way electricity is traded and priced on a market scale. For the millions of consumers that are frustrated with their power companies – due to poor customer service and frequent outages, the batteries could be a godsend.
Consumers have relatively limited choices when it comes to powering their homes. Most rely exclusively on the local utility providers. Generators can be rather expensive – homeowners can pay around £13000 for back-up generators that run on natural gas. So Tesla has seen a gap in a market that is certainly ripe for improvement.
Morgan Stanley wrote that Tesla’s forthcoming products could meet a huge market demand.
“There may be a ‘tipping point’ that causes customers to seek an off-grid approach,” He wrote last March. “The more customers move to solar, the remaining utility customer bill will rise, creating even further “headroom” for Tesla’s off-grid approach.”
The groundwork has already been laid down by Tesla to ensure batteries get as much distribution as possible.