Tesla Power Wall

[dangerman]

My brother told me about this a while ago, and I watched a video on YouTube about it yesterday. I'm excited!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OARwwN7PoA4

The thing that appeals to me most, of course, is the price. The 7KWh version is claimed to be about $3000/£2000. Charge it up during non-peak times (so you'd have to sign up for a non-peak tariff) and live off it during peak times as an investment. I imagine that it's not a massive gain cash wise, but it's deffo a winner once the price starts to come down, which it inevitably will.

Now, the winner for me comes with a small solar set up. I reckon you could get a 1kw system for about £500 - so, should the prices start to come down over the next year or two, the potential to have a viable off grid power source (at least for eight or so months of the year) is very realistic. 1KWh solar system, I'm assuming will be enough to charge it on an average day with some power left to keep the house ticking over.

The set up is would still take several years to pay for itself (especially in this miserable climate), but from a prepper perspective, or like me, just the desire to be self sufficient, the powerwall comes with some exciting prospects.

So, experts, is this as good as it sounds? Or is it a viable option to just use lead acid batteries right now? 7KWh is just the same as, like, seven or eight lead acid batteries in parallel? Which is cheaper. So what's the advantages and disadvantages? Or am I just getting carried away?

[metatron]

There is nothing new or revolutionary with the technology, although the way he is charging the cells means it will last a good 10 to 15 years before you will want to replace it. If it does go into large scale manufacture and the price is right, with that and solar cells, it will be a game changer for sure.

The issue will be the installation costs. Right now my solar and marine deep cycle battery system was cheap as I did it myself and sourced parts from China, but UK based installers will rip people of with their service. Adding 1000% to every part and then charging an insane amount to do a fairly simple task. People that work in renewable energy I've found are mostly arse holes looking to swindle as much as they can out of people and the government in subsidies.

[dangerman]

I think that's the point, what's new is the scale of it all. They're indicating that they are going large scale, and they're suggesting that this is the first generation of many. This could get very brilliant very quickly.

I'm just thinking about the batteries in phones and laptops how they've changed in recent years, lithium polymer vs ion etc. Or even NIMH. There is a lot of tech that exists and just needs to be produced - there is a market for it. Apple would not be where they are if the battery technology could not support their products, and it's the same here. It's in Tesla's interests to start knocking out good, cheap batteries because their cars are crap at the moment. No one can live with them and even fewer can afford them. They need people to start trusting in batteries and this could be it man! This is exciting shtuff! The fact that they're innovating beyond transport is a good move for me. Like when Apple moved into music players - a side interest that supported and enhanced their main speciality.

Once the cheap knock off manufacturers figure this all out, poor people like me are sorted. I'll get a powerwall for a tenner down the market and use youtube vids to figure out how to fit it.

[metatron]

I think that's the point, what's new is the scale of it all. They're indicating that they are going large scale, and they're suggesting that this is the first generation of many. This could get very brilliant very quickly.

I'm just thinking about the batteries in phones and laptops how they've changed in recent years, lithium polymer vs ion etc. Or even NIMH. There is a lot of tech that exists and just needs to be produced - there is a market for it. Apple would not be where they are if the battery technology could not support their products, and it's the same here. It's in Tesla's interests to start knocking out good, cheap batteries because their cars are crap at the moment. No one can live with them and even fewer can afford them. They need people to start trusting in batteries and this could be it man! This is exciting shtuff! The fact that they're innovating beyond transport is a good move for me. Like when Apple moved into music players - a side interest that supported and enhanced their main speciality.


Once the cheap knock off manufacturers figure this all out, poor people like me are sorted. I'll get a powerwall for a tenner down the market and use youtube vids to figure out how to fit it.

They gave up their patent/design I believe. I remember watching an interview about them opening it up, as long as the cheap knock offs don't burn down too many homes, then yeah its massive. The power you generate is no longer going into the grid, but is being stored for later use. It makes building an off grid home much easier too.

[dangerman]

I think that's the point, what's new is the scale of it all. They're indicating that they are going large scale, and they're suggesting that this is the first generation of many. This could get very brilliant very quickly.

I'm just thinking about the batteries in phones and laptops how they've changed in recent years, lithium polymer vs ion etc. Or even NIMH. There is a lot of tech that exists and just needs to be produced - there is a market for it. Apple would not be where they are if the battery technology could not support their products, and it's the same here. It's in Tesla's interests to start knocking out good, cheap batteries because their cars are crap at the moment. No one can live with them and even fewer can afford them. They need people to start trusting in batteries and this could be it man! This is exciting shtuff! The fact that they're innovating beyond transport is a good move for me. Like when Apple moved into music players - a side interest that supported and enhanced their main speciality.


Once the cheap knock off manufacturers figure this all out, poor people like me are sorted. I'll get a powerwall for a tenner down the market and use youtube vids to figure out how to fit it.

They gave up their patent/design I believe. I remember watching an interview about them opening it up, as long as the cheap knock offs don't burn down too many homes, then yeah its massive. The power you generate is no longer going into the grid, but is being stored for later use. It makes building an off grid home much easier too.

There is no reason that the power couldn't be sold back to the grid is there? Fortunately for me, my brother is a spark, so I'm sorted for professional installation.

[metatron]

I think that's the point, what's new is the scale of it all. They're indicating that they are going large scale, and they're suggesting that this is the first generation of many. This could get very brilliant very quickly.

I'm just thinking about the batteries in phones and laptops how they've changed in recent years, lithium polymer vs ion etc. Or even NIMH. There is a lot of tech that exists and just needs to be produced - there is a market for it. Apple would not be where they are if the battery technology could not support their products, and it's the same here. It's in Tesla's interests to start knocking out good, cheap batteries because their cars are crap at the moment. No one can live with them and even fewer can afford them. They need people to start trusting in batteries and this could be it man! This is exciting shtuff! The fact that they're innovating beyond transport is a good move for me. Like when Apple moved into music players - a side interest that supported and enhanced their main speciality.


Once the cheap knock off manufacturers figure this all out, poor people like me are sorted. I'll get a powerwall for a tenner down the market and use youtube vids to figure out how to fit it.

They gave up their patent/design I believe. I remember watching an interview about them opening it up, as long as the cheap knock offs don't burn down too many homes, then yeah its massive. The power you generate is no longer going into the grid, but is being stored for later use. It makes building an off grid home much easier too.

There is no reason that the power couldn't be sold back to the grid is there? Fortunately for me, my brother is a spark, so I'm sorted for professional installation.

Well the current normal thing people do is get a bunch of solar panels on their roofs and in the day time they use a percentage of the power and the rest gets dumped into the grid and you receive a sum of money (feed in tariff) which is going down dramatically soon. You then buy power back from the grid at night. Your energy bill is much cheaper, but it still costs you money and it takes years to return any investment you made.

With this system if the Tesla power wall is full then yeah you can sell it back to the grid, but its going to get to a point where its really not worth it. The plus is that you don't need to buy power, and the little you do make, plus the zero continuous costs, past new solar panels every 25 years and a new set of batteries every 10 to 15 years means the overall cost should be negligible.

[Sparkyy]

Average retrun on a solar PV system is 5 years with the product and the payments guaranteed for 20 years so 15 years of profit our system pays back roughly £600/y cash and saves us about the same again on our bills so if you've got the funds it's a better investment than a bank. A big one for us was the immersion heater gadget which senses any surplus power that would normally be sent back to the grid and diverts that power to you immersion heater so for around 5 months a year we get free hot water. The tesla wall would be perfect for anyone with a PV system during the same period. I toyed with building a system of my own from an old UPS but the big factor is space for a decent sized system. I'll be looking at the tesla wall as it develops, I love their cars and if the price was lower I'd have one for the Mrs I've driven a friends quite a bit and it's superb 250 miles/charge full charge is 4 hours fast charge is 20mins and that will give you roughly 180miles. They drive like nothing I've ever used just silent with the 0-60 time of a motorbike I'd always thought of them as a Hollywood fad but after driving one completely changed my view.

[Deeps]

I've got the 4KW worth of panels on the roof and while (for me anyway) they're next to worthless at this time of year I've very much got my eye on the Tesla batteries, even if they perfected it tomorrow I'll have to wait, the missus will be wanting a new car first then if the technology/price allows it will be the batteries. I'll be getting them at some point though.

[Hamradioop]

With the right price point the Tesla Wall makes absolute sense if you have solar PV. I recently had 4kw installed on my roof and I await the next electric bill with interest.

[Slazanger]

I've got this on my list too, the waiting list is quite high though