Mateo Jaramillo is a veteran at Tesla. He joined the automaker in 2009 as commercial lead on OEM powertrain sales for development and production contracts, and he became Director of ‘Tesla Energy’ when the company started the division in 2014 – before launching the product line in April 2015.
He was recently promoted to ‘Vice President Products & Programs – Tesla Energy’ as the company is ramping up its effort in stationary energy storage. Around the same time that Tesla promoted Jaramillo, the company also hired Trinasolar’s President of Europe and Africa, Ben Hill, to lead its energy division in same the markets.
Jaramillo gave a presentation this week about Tesla’s effort in the energy storage industry. He described Tesla as a “system developer for batteries” – meaning that its core business is to develop and utilize battery and battery management technologies for different system applications – whether it’d be for electric vehicles or stationary energy storage.
After launching the Tesla Energy division, home energy storage went somewhat viral and Tesla received over 38,000 “reservations” for the Powerwall, its home battery pack, but Tesla also launched the Powerpack, which will represent the vast majority of Tesla Energy’s business.
The Powerpack is a scalable 100 kWh battery pack for commercial and utility-scale projects. Tesla already inked a few Powerpack deals including a project with 3 high schools in San Diego and a 500 MWh supply agreement with Advanced Microgrid Solutions.
During his presentation, Jaramillo highlighted the need for collaboration with electric utility companies to develop these projects and that Tesla already has connections with these companies due to its Supercharger network, which Jaramillo actually oversaw at the beginning of the effort and was responsible for the first 200 site acquisitions in America and Europe.
He also talked about opportunities with microgrids in emerging markets, especially in Africa where Tesla is rumoured to be in talks to build a new battery factory:
“We see very big opportunities in microgrids in emerging markets.We have already started up our efforts in Africa. In fact, we have an effort currently underway in South Africa and we will use that as sort of launching pad for the rest of the continent.”
Here’s Jaramillo’s PowerPoint presentation and below you’ll find the audio via Youtube:
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