Powerpack 2.0 component pricing?

[Colby Boles]

Before the refresh, you could price Powerpack systems online by selecting the inverter size, battery capacity, etc. I don't see the pricing information anymore. I have filled out the contact form, but I'm wondering if anyone knows off hand what the new components cost now. I noticed that inverter sizes go lower than they used to (50kW instead of 250kW minimum) for example, so there will be some differences in the configurations compared to before.

 

[nativewolf]

I'd like to know the same thing, it seems that a few powerwalls get you pretty darn close to the powerpack performance. If they made the same sort of shift for the powerpack as for the powerwall I'm going to put a deposit it for that and the roof and go off grid.

 

[Colby Boles]

I'm guessing they will have made similar shifts in the price per kWh. Part of my interest in the commercial scale systems is that I would like to take some large three phase machines in my shop off grid as well, which have motors up to 50hp, but are only used for a couple hours on some days. I figure I will need a 100kW+ inverter to cover the home a workshop uses at the same time, with around 200kWh+ of storage,

 

[nativewolf]

I'm guessing they will have made similar shifts in the price per kWh. Part of my interest in the commercial scale systems is that I would like to take some large three phase machines in my shop off grid as well, which have motors up to 50hp, but are only used for a couple hours on some days. I figure I will need a 100kW+ inverter to cover the home a workshop uses at the same time, with around 200kWh+ of storage,

Ha, I want to run a small saw mill an hour or two a day and a 3 phase planer. Too funny.

 

[Colby Boles]

FYI, the configurator is back with pricing. Looking at the page source, all of the configurations are hard-coded in data structures like this:

{
"duration": 2,
"power": 600,
"energy": 1140,
"inverters": 1,
"powerstage": 10,
"pp": 12,
"total_price": 544330
},

which shows a little more information than you see on the rendered web page. My conclusions from this are:

• "Inverters" are up to 600kW per (cabinet?), composed of "power stages"
• Power stages are 50kW each, up to 10 per inverter
• Power packs are 95kW or 210kW each (old and new versions?)

Just looking at the 210kW pack-based systems and solving some linear equations, it looks like:

210kW pack: $83650
50kW power stages: $5680
inverter: $17010
controller, other fixed costs: $3410

I don't know if there are errors in their pricing tables, or some other exceptions, but there seems to be some cases in the multi-inverter systems where they are not counting the number of power stages correctly, but still charging you for them. In the majority of the cases, the pricing breakout above is correct though.

Here is a CSV to play with if you don't feel like converting the JSON:

 

[Colby Boles]

I guess it is also worth pointing out that you could buy 15 Powerwall 2.0s for $82500 and have a 210kW system with 75kW output capability, which is more than $25k cheaper than a similar Powerpack solution. The difference being that it wouldn't be 480V 3ph and less robust, configurable, and expandable. I'm not sure if you can set up the Powerwalls to do 208Y 3ph either.

 

[Sodamo]

So how many kw of PV would be required to support either 95kw or 215 kw powerpacks off grid?

 

[MP3Mike]

I guess it is also worth pointing out that you could buy 15 Powerwall 2.0s

I thought the limit for a Powerwall system was 9 Powerwall 2 units. Beyond that and you have to move to a Powerpack system.

 

[Colby Boles]

I thought the limit for a Powerwall system was 9 Powerwall 2 units. Beyond that and you have to move to a Powerpack system.

In my case I was thinking of a three phase system, so you could treat a 15 PW system as 3 independent units with 5 PW each. Of course for off grid use they would all need to be synchronized to have the 120 degree phasing, but I'm not really expecting the PWs to be able to do that as compared to the Powerpack systems which are designed for three phase.

I would think that the 9 PW limit would just be in terms of control coordination. Since these are backfeeding on the AC mains, it's not clear to me how it would even be aware that you had more than 9 assuming they were part of independent systems. For example, what's the difference between one house having 18 PWs and two neighboring houses having 9 PWs each, both on the same transformer?

 

[Colby Boles]

So how many kw of PV would be required to support either 95kw or 215 kw powerpacks off grid?

The powerpacks define your storage capacity, not your energy usage. Your PV sizing would need to exceed your daily energy usage in the worst-case months. The pack sizing would just be to make sure you could keep running overnight and through some bad weather days.

 

[techmaven]

So how many kw of PV would be required to support either 95kw or 215 kw powerpacks off grid?

@Colby Boles is correct, but let me add some additional color. If you have 9 x PowerWall 2's, which is 121.5 kWh of capacity, you likely need around 130 kWh of power to charge them up fully. If you are able to fully deplete that set of PowerWall 2's each night, then you need to be able to generate 130 kWh of power during the next day to fully charge them. At, say, 6 hours of average solar insolation at your location, then you need to be able to generate 21.7 kWh per hour, which means 21.7 kW. But that implies zero usage of solar during the day, it all goes to charging the batteries.

Of course, that isn't really the way someone would go about sizing.