Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk officially announced on Thursday, two battery backup products, one for homes and one for industrial use, at the company’s Southern California design studio in Hawthorne. These lithium-ion battery modules can store electricity from solar panels and serve to balance loads from the grid, charge up during non-peak energy usage hours, and then provide energy to a home or facility during peak hours. Called the Powerwall, which Tesla will sell in 7- and 10 kilowatt-hour modules, the smaller module will retail for $3,000 and the larger, for $3,500. Continue reading for the full 18-minute presentation.
The battery modules could provide energy to a house or facility during a blackout, and enable owners to practice “energy arbitrage,” or buying energy at cheaper rates during non-peak hours and using it during higher rate hours. Musk said that the Powerwall will work best for solar-powered homes, as it can store excess energy captured by the panels and make use of it during off-peak hours. A home with at least one Powerwall module and solar panels could be “grid-independent.”
