First residential Tesla Powerwall installed in Sydney suburb

[S'toon]

THE future of renewable energy in Australia has been given a significant boost with the first residential Tesla Powerwall being installed in a Sydney suburb.




Nick Pfitzner from Kellyville Ridge said he was excited to be the first residential recipient of the Tesla Powerwall — a home battery that powers your home after charging using electricity generated from solar panels or from the grid when utility rates are low.


“I have been following Tesla since it has been doing stuff with the electric cars because renewable energy is something I am very keen on,” he told news.com.au.


“When I saw Tesla was rolling out the Powerwall, I quickly paid my deposit and was ecstatic to find I was going to be the first person in Australia to have one installed residentially. I got to be king of the nerds for one day.”

<snip>


Mr Pfitzner said he was surprised by how discreet the unit was considering its functions.


“I really like what they are doing here with the design of the Powerwall, it’s similar to what Apple did for smartphones,” he said.


“I have only had it running for one day, but so far everything has functioned exactly as it should.”


Managing Director of Natural Solar Chris Williams said it was an honour for his company to be an authorised installer of the Tesla Powerwall.

<snip>

Full article at:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/i...b/news-story/01f781cf4e4350950e6d90464a095bc6

 

[AntronX]

The article says install cost starts at $13K AUD ($9210 USD). That's $1316/KWh USD installed. At this price, it will take 27.5 years and 7147 cycles (at 70% DOD) to cost break even time shifting off-peak electricity with FP&L TOU plan. This is crazy expensive. Edit: Seems like that price may include solar panels too, making above calculation wrong.

 

[CTemp222]

How many powerwalls have been installed in the US?

 

[bh1783]

The article says install cost starts at $13K AUD ($9210 USD). That's $1316/KWh USD installed. At this price, it will take 27.5 years and 7147 cycles (at 70% DOD) to cost break even time shifting off-peak electricity with FP&L TOU plan. This is crazy expensive.

According to this article it says an 8 year payback(without taking into account carbon tax rebates)
The Tesla Powerwall is finally rolling out. First stop: Australia

According to Pfitzner's calculations, for his family, there should be a return on investment in less than eight years. "If [power] prices go up, or in the likely scenario we get a carbon tax back, it's going to be good."

 

[techmaven]

According to the installer's website, this is likely a package that includes a 5 kW solar array, SolarEdge inverter with StorEdge, and installation on top of just the PowerWall.

 

[GSP]

Another article on the subject:

First Tesla Powerwall operational in Australia under Energex solar battery trial: pv-magazine

Anyone hear of any power wall deliveries in other countries, like maybe the USA?

GSP

 

[ecarfan]

I haven't heard of any Powerwall installations in the US. I am in California and really want one this year. I made an email "reservation" the day after the Tesla Energy launch last year but have heard nothing since from Tesla.

 

[roblab]

I haven't heard of any Powerwall installations in the US. I am in California and really want one this year. I made an email "reservation" the day after the Tesla Energy launch last year but have heard nothing since from Tesla.

I have an old EV friend who lives in the North Bay San Francisco area. He has been hired by Tesla to be a Powerwall Installer. As far as I know, he's still training. I had my reservation in early, also.

 

[S'toon]

Another article on the subject:

First Tesla Powerwall operational in Australia under Energex solar battery trial: pv-magazine

Anyone hear of any power wall deliveries in other countries, like maybe the USA?

GSP

I read somewhere that they're starting off in Australia due to the high levels of solar power installations there. Or something like that.

 

[miimura]

I read somewhere that they're starting off in Australia due to the high levels of solar power installations there. Or something like that.

I believe Australia has a feed-in tariff system that strongly encourages self-consumption. In other words, you pay retail for everything you pull from the grid but get much less credit for anything you push into the grid. This is a good reason to use battery.

 

[spentan]

I read somewhere that they're starting off in Australia due to the high levels of solar power installations there. Or something like that.

Having grown up in Australia and moving to SoCal (for a Tesla, I might add) a couple of years ago, I can definitely confirm that Solar Power is very popular there. Both my (rented out) and my parents' houses have a 5kW system on the roof, I have an SMA Sunnyboy with SunPower panels, and my parents have a Fronius Inverter with Renesola panels.

I believe Australia has a feed-in tariff system that strongly encourages self-consumption. In other words, you pay retail for everything you pull from the grid but get much less credit for anything you push into the grid. This is a good reason to use battery.

Yes, this is correct. So when they started, they used to have a feed-in tariff of about 60c per kWh. There is a person in Canberra that took out a mortgage in order to buy about 30kW worth of system, so that after his loan was paid off, he'd be making solid money every year. (There was no reasonable limit on how much solar you could put on the roof).

Yes, they got rid of that pretty quick, (they were grandfathered until 2020 iirc). I remember shopping around and most power companies would give you between 4-7 cents per kWh as a feed-in tariff, while still charging 19c for offpeak and 38c for peak.

So apart from maybe California, Aussie Power is extremely expensive, and there is huge dependence on Coal Power plants. Hence the push to sell powerwalls there (and in other countries) first.

 

[Brunel]

UK installers are taking Powerwall pre-orders now and claim installations can happen in March, which came out of the blue. At £6k and assuming you have a Solaredge inverter already it is not cheap, but I know quite a few who will order - if you can afford to and want to add to the momentum and economies of scale then fine!