All eyes will be on Tesla this week as the eagerly awaited Tesla home battery is unveiled.
The online world was abuzz last week when Jeff Evanson, Tesla’s VP of investor relations, said details of the Tesla home battery and a very large utility scale battery would be announced on April 30.
In February, Tesla founder Elon Musk said a residential battery storage solution would be in production in “about 6 months”.
Rumour has it that the Tesla battery will be initially available in 10 and 15 kWh configurations.
Any time the Tesla name pops up, it’s sure to grab attention. Expectations are high of a game-changing product – a top performing battery at a very competitive pricing point. If anyone can do it, Tesla can thanks to its extensive experience in refining electric vehicle batteries.
But Tesla is by no means Robinson Crusoe when it comes to home energy storage sector – in fact, the sector starting to look a little crowded already before the home battery revolution has even really kicked in.
This is good news for consumers as affordable residential energy storage will happen far quicker than anticipated. It’s perhaps not such good news for power companies worrying about grid defection or equally as troubling, load defection. In north-east USA, customer load defection could reduce annual energy sales by ~10–20% by as early as 2020.
Assuming a reasonably priced and good quality product is available, many Australian households with solar panels may choose to further reduce their reliance on the mains grid – or ditch it altogether by adding storage to an existing system.
As was the case with the rooftop revolution, with choice will come challenges for consumers in identifying quality battery products. However, some big names have already jumped onto the energy storage bandwagon; which will make an informed choice an easier task.
Another respected company to soon offer a top quality and competitively priced total home energy storage solution will be Austria’s Fronius. Fronius is already well known in Australia for its high-efficiency solar inverter products.
Locally, SunEdison company Energy Matters states it intends offering Tesla battery based systems and Fronius Hybrid home energy storage solutions to Australian customers when these products are available. Energy Matters says the Fronius Hybrid product will also enable the company to offer storage ready solar power systems for households looking to seamlessly add storage capacity at a later date.
Those interested in residential energy storage system options can register for pre-release announcements from Energy Matters by clicking here.
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