Tesla Powerwall 2 Review

Australia is exceptionally well suited for solar power: Its location is relatively near the equator (sun’s path) and blue skies. Australian scientists have been at the forefront of solar PV research leading to some of the most efficient solar photovoltaic modules being developed and tested in Australian universities. We will be reviewing the new Tesla Powerwall 2.

The new Tesla Powerwall 3 is out soon, but doesn’t appear to be much of an upgrade – What do you think?

In spite of these advantages, Australia is very slow in developing in terms of taking up solar energy; for example, relatively cloudy Germany has 10 Watts of solar photovoltaic power per capita while the corresponding figure for Australia is 2.6W (figures for about 2008). This has been due to plentiful and cheap coal and short-sighted government policies influenced by a very strong fossil fuel lobby.

tesla powerwall 2 review brisbane
The New Tesla Powerwall 2 Now more powerful

Where this article deals with specific solar Tesla Power Wall 2 devices, I will mainly concentrate on the benefits of the gadget to Australian residents wishing to achieve power independence. This article will explain widely what is Tesla’s power wall gadget and how it is going to help the energy sector in Australia.

Tesla Power Wall Review

In the year 2015, Tesla Motors deviated its interests to overall home energy storage and announced its first home battery pack, the Tesla Power Wall.

In the past, Tesla Motors has been known for producing high-quality electric vehicles and currently developing solar cars. In fact, while Tesla’s automobiles revitalized the 21st-century electric vehicle market, the first electric cars were invented more than a hundred years earlier.

Tesla’s rebranding of residential-use batteries is in line with its legacy of reimagining existing products. The Tesla Power Wall may represent the first time in history that everyday homeowners are truly excited about the potential of storing energy in their homes.

What is the Tesla Power Wall?

Tesla describes the Power Wall as a “rechargeable lithium-ion battery with liquid thermal control.”  It is one of a few companies in the residential energy storage market that makes small-scale batteries for home energy storage. The first-generation Power Wall launched in April 2015, and an updated Power Wall 2.0 was announced in October 2016. The Power wall 2.0 is priced at $5,500.

Tesla battery packs are an ideal complement for solar panel systems, especially in off-grid projects where homeowners need to become 100% responsible and in control of their energy. This device from Tesla helps homeowners store enough energy for their house both during the day and at night.

How does Tesla’s battery work?

While Tesla’s research into battery technology was initially focused on the auto market, manufacturing a Tesla battery pack for home use was the correct channel to bring out their inventions and long-lasting battery expertise to the eyes of the world.

The Tesla power wall is sized and designed to produce energy for your house in day-to-day life, mostly suitable for use together with solar panels. The solar panels produce energy and store it in the Tesla power wall. If the solar panels produce more than you can use, only you can send it to the grid but only when the Tesla home battery pack is fully charged.


Normally, this process happens over a day: when the sun is high in the sky and your solar panels are producing more electricity than you can use, the surplus energy is stored in your Tesla Power wall. As the sun goes down and your solar panel production decreases, you draw on the electricity that you stored during the sunniest part of the day. Essentially, the Power wall helps you balance out your electricity production and usage over the day.

Benefits of Tesla Power Wall 2 to people of Australia.

To the people of Australia, Tesla power wall comes with a lot of advantages aimed mostly at ensuring that your house is ever-powered and you can store excessive energy in the power wall. Living in the ‘sunshine state’, it makes sense for Brisbane residents to harness the sun’s energy to power their homes. Likewise, it makes sense to choose Tesla Power Wall 2 as their home battery pack. This way they will expose themselves to a variety of benefits that come with Tesla Power Wall 2. Below are some of the benefits of the Tesla power wall;

  • The Power wall’s revolutionary compact design achieves leading energy density. You’ll get more from your solar power by storing the excess energy in a Power Wall, so you can use it later. The sun is always on. It does not switch off, it only disappears for 12 hours and then it comes back. For those 1 hour, the most common technique used in Australia is to generate energy and feed to the grid so that when night comes you will draw the energy from the grid and use it. But what if during the day there was no excess energy to feed the grid, you would end up using the grid power, and that way you would still receive your monthly power bills.

You can read a case study on the Tesla Powerwall 2 in Australia here.

To eliminate this possible situation, the Tesla power wall will provide ample capacity to store your energy rather than feed the grid. The energy produced will charge the Tesla Power Wall 2 so that during the night and days of autonomy you can always have clean power and bill-free because you made the right choice to invest in the Tesla Power Wall.

  • You can reduce the power you need from the grid to meet the electricity needs of your household, which means further savings on your energy bills.
  • With 13.5kWh of storage and usable energy, the Power Wall 2 has almost double the capacity of the previous version. For those who know the previous version of the Power Wall, you will notice that the Tesla Power Wall 2 is almost double the previous version. This way it has increased it capacity to 13.5kwh. The capacity is suitable for large-scale use.
  • Using Tesla’s proven battery technology, the Power wall is economical and safe and doesn’t need any ongoing maintenance. The Tesla power wall exhibits the true characteristics of a maintenance-free battery. It does not need any maintenance to keep producing energy for the house. It is also free of emissions and
  • Installation is now more flexible with the option of wall or floor mounting. Some systems come with so complicated mechanisms of placing. Some systems end up taking up the place you could use to place some of your home assets. The Tesla power wall 2 comes with a flexible easy mounting mechanism. Its wall mounting option saves your home space and gives very great aesthetics.
  • Now app is enabled to use Tesla’s solar and demand monitoring, so you can keep track of and monitor your energy on the go. Monitoring of systems has never been made easier in previous versions of such systems as Power Wall 2. The Tesla Power Wall 2 comes with an application used to monitor the system remotely and easily.
  • The Power wall comes with up to a 10-year warranty.
Tesla powerwall 2 review and specifications
Tesla Powerwall 2 review and specifications

Tesla Powerwall 2 Warranty

The Power wall comes with an unlimited 10-year warranty that assumes your battery is used for daily charging and draining. However, Tesla does not currently offer any coverage related to how much capacity the battery will lose during that time.

 

Tesla’s battery technology is similar to other rechargeable batteries both large and small: as time goes on, the battery loses some of its ability to hold a charge. Think of how the battery life of a brand-new smartphone compares to one that is a few years old. As you continually charge and drain your phone’s battery, it starts to lose some of its ability to hold a charge.

 

Tesla’s battery life will deteriorate in the same way. That isn’t an indicator of a product flaw – all batteries lose some of their ability to hold a charge over time, whether it’s an electric vehicle battery, a home energy battery, or a rechargeable AA battery. However, many of the other solar batteries for home use that are on the market do come with warranties that guarantee a certain amount of storage capacity.

 

While the warranty isn’t the only criterion to evaluate when choosing a solar battery for your home, it should be one factor under consideration when investing in solar-plus storage.

  • Power wall will be available in a 7 kilowatt hour (kW) model, designed for daily use applications, and a 10kwh model, designed for backup power. The units weigh about 220 lbs. Total capacity can be upgraded by modular connection of up to nine additional units. Tesla expects to start shipping the Power Wall sometime during the summer of 2015.
    • Tesla provides the following specifications for the Power wall:
    • Mounting: Wall Mounted Indoor/Outdoor
    • Inverter: Pairs with a growing list of inverters
    • Energy: 7 kWh or 10 kWh
    • Continuous Power: 2 kW
    • Peak Power: 3.3 kW
    • Round Trip Efficiency: 92%
    • Operating Temperature Range: -20C (-4F) to 43C (110F)
    • Warranty: 10 years
    • Dimensions: H: 1300mm W: 860mm D:180mm
  • Power wall, which is aimed at the residential market, is designed to store power generated at peak solar time for use during power outages and out-of-peak solar time, including night. The system’s slim, modular design is adapted from the technology used in Tesla’s electric cars and can hold up to 7 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is enough energy to power a typical home in the United States for about 7 hours. A similar product, the Tesla Power Pack, is aimed at the business and utility market. Both products are based on lithium-ion battery technology.
  • Another key advantage to the Power Wall 2 over the original (or even over its competitors) is its integration with the Tesla app. While the app was originally designed just for Tesla’s electric vehicles, it was recently updated with the capacity to connect to Power Wall 2 modules. The app lets Power wall owners monitor their home energy system from afar, while also allowing input such as setting a minimum energy reserve in case of a grid outage.

FAQs

  1. Can you go “off the grid” with a Tesla Power wall and solar?

Installing a solar-plus-storage system at your home is a great way to take control of your electricity bill, but it doesn’t mean that you’re completely disconnected from your utility. Going “off the grid” with solar batteries is a more expensive and complicated proposition than you might think. A single Tesla home battery will only provide backup power for a few hours – not nearly enough to cover you if you have an entirely cloudy day, let alone several days or weeks of inclement weather.

  1. How much does the Tesla Power wall cost?

The cost of the equipment for a new Tesla Power Wall 2.0 battery is $5,500, which includes a built-in inverter and twice the storage capacity of the original Power Wall battery. By comparison, the list price for a first-generation Power wall without an inverter was $3,500. To install the battery, you would have also needed a separate, specially-made inverter that can communicate between your solar panel system, your battery, and the electric grid.

  1. Should you install a Tesla Power wall or other solar battery?

Solar batteries are a fairly new technology for homeowners. While they offer significant benefits for some, they aren’t always a necessary investment. If your utility offers net metering, installing a solar battery won’t save you money. However, if you install a solar panel system in an area with time-of-use (TOU) electricity rates, no net metering, or significant demand charges, a solar battery could be a good choice for you.

The Bottom Line

Home battery storage is awesome, and the technology is well worth investing in as a whole. On a personal level, the economics are still a decent way off it being a no-brainer investment for most households. That said, there are loads of non-economic benefits, especially changing usage habits, which can make home battery storage tech worthwhile.

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