powerwall

It looks like Tesla is about to change the battery game – this time by installing more energy storage capacity in 2016 with SolarCity alone than all of the USA installed in 2015. In a recent filing with the SEC, it was found that Tesla foresees an almost 10X increase in sales to SolarCity for behind the meter storage.

We recognized approximately $4.9 million in revenue from SolarCity during fiscal year 2015 for sales of energy storage products governed by this master supply agreement, and anticipate recognizing approximately $44.0 million in such revenues during fiscal year 2016.

Source

According to an analysis by GTM’s Ravi Manghan this revenue projection means Tesla expects to install approximately 116 MWh of behind the meter storage. In all of 2015, the United States installed about 76 MWh of behind the meter. Starting from a very low base, SolarCity and Tesla Energy doubled their battery installation volume last year. These were small installations at test locations for special customers, but that wall of ‘start up’ is already starting to fall.
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SunEdison, the world’s largest renewable-energy developer, has been going through some serious financial troubles for a while now and could reportedly file for bankruptcy as soon as this week. Its stock (SUNE) lost 98% of its value over the past 12 months and people are starting to jump ship.

Through the troubles, Electrek has learned that Tesla hired a key member of SunEdison’s energy storage team.
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Tesla today began a wider rollout of its 7kWh Powerwall product for customers who are also Tesla vehicle owners across the US. Tesla Energy quietly cancelled the 10kWh Powerwall option with limited cycles we found out today because the “economics didn’t work” just months after it was announced. The 7kWh battery is obviously a lower capacity but it optimized for daily usage cycles which may not be optimal for those looking for a backup solution rather than an off grid application…
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As we reported on Friday, local Reno media outlets were given rare access to the Tesla Gigafactory and we even got our very first glimpse of the manufacturing floor. Though reporters were not allowed to take footage of the assembly line and it looks like all pictures were from the same angle near the offices.

Now it appears that someone with better access leaked several pictures of Tesla’s Powerwall and Powerpack assembly line, and it’s awesome.
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We noticed that Tesla removed references to its higher-capacity 10-kilowatt-hour residential battery from the Powerwall website (and the press kit) some time ago, but today GreenTechMedia received an official statement from a Tesla representative confirming that the larger capacity battery has indeed been discontinued…

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Germany-based solar energy component supplier Memodo confirmed having received a large shipment of Tesla Powerwalls this week and that installations will start soon.

Memodo CEO Daniel Schmitt claims that his company is the first Tesla Energy distributor to receive the new home battery pack in Germany and he shared the picture seen below.
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Today Tesla started sending out Powerwall installation surveys to Model S owners who requested the product after its unveiling in May 2015. A week after the launch, Tesla reported over 38,000 requests for the Powerwall, but those weren’t official reservations with deposits.

This latest development will likely be a better representation of the demand since the company is asking for a lot more information about the installation of the home battery pack.
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SolarCity published its earnings for the fourth quarter and full year 2015 yesterday. The company’s stock price fell 25% following the results, mainly because of lower than expected guidance for the first quarter 2016 and a miss in installed solar capacity following its exit from Nevada, as well as difficulties completing a few commercial projects on the east coast.

On a more positive note, we learn from the company’s SEC filing that it more than doubled its battery pack business with Tesla Energy in 2015 versus the previous year, despite the market for home energy storage only being in its infancy.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk often refers to a company simply as “a group of people getting together to make a product”, which is exactly what the automaker is doing with its ‘Tesla Energy’ division.

The Palo Alto-based company has been assembling an impressive team around its stationary energy storage products, and even transferred several key players from its core business to lead the initiative, which goes a long way to show how Tesla sees its energy division as an integral part of its business going forward.
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Just a week after the first Tesla Powerwall for residential use in Australia has reportedly been installed in a Sydney suburb, it’s now the UK’s turn to get its first Tesla home battery pack. Homeowner Mark Kerr has become the first British Tesla Powerwall owner after a SolarPlant engineer installed the system at his home in Wales.
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Just a week after the first Tesla Powerwall for residential use in Australia has reportedly been installed in a Sydney suburb, we learn the company is launching a recruitment drive in Melbourne and Sydney to increase its ‘Tesla Energy’ team in the country.
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As Tesla Motors is just starting to ramp up its ‘Tesla Energy’ division, we learn that the company is already planning to release a second generation Powerwall, its home energy storage system, during summer 2016.
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The first Tesla Powerwall for residential use in Australia has reportedly been installed in a Sydney suburb this week. Nick Pfitzner was one of the first to reserve an installation with Natural Solar, an official Tesla Energy distributor, and the Pfitzner family finally received their home battery pack this week.
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A picture leaked from inside Tesla in the Netherlands, either from the Amsterdam service center or the Tilburg assembly plant, shows what could be a new vehicle and large shipment of Powerwall battery packs.
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The U.S. Department of Energy announced this week a $4 million award to Austin Energy, a publicly owned electric utility, and its partners, which include Tesla Energy, for the ‘Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV’ (SHINES) project under the Energy Department’s Grid Modernization Initiative.
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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.
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Tesla clearly states that the installation of a Powerwall requires knowledge of high voltage electricity and should only be executed by Tesla Energy Certified installers, but for the sake of sharing the information, here’s the step by step instructions to install the Powerwall as well as its user manual.
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Tesla started testing the Powewall, its home battery system, with “pilot customers” last summer. At the time, a Tesla spokesperson told Electrek that the 7 kWh version of the battery pack was in production and that over the next few weeks they would “continue to ramp up to volume production”, but a few weeks later, the company moved the production line of its Tesla Energy products to the Gigafactory in Nevada, which delayed the ramp up of production.
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When Tesla CEO Elon Musk first announced the Gigafactory project, he said that even though the planned capacity of the factory is equal to the entire global production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013, the world would sill need around 200 more giant factories of similar size to support the auto industry’s transition from fossil fuels to electric.

Tesla named the factory in Nevada: “Gigafactory 1”, implying that the company plans to eventually introduce “Gigafactory 2” and so on. Late last year, German Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel confirmed being in contact with Elon Musk over the possibility of building a battery factory in the country. Now we learn that Tesla is also reportedly in talks to build another Gigafactory in South Africa.
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Local South African news is reporting that Tesla is planning to open an office in the country in early 2016. The company will first aim at developing the market for its ‘Tesla Energy’ products: the Powerwall and Powerpack.

There’s currently no word on Tesla bringing its vehicles to South Africa. 
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Australia has the world’s highest per capita penetration of rooftop solar technology with 15% of households using solar for a total of 1.5 million households across the country. Electricity prices, which are among the highest in the world, and abundant sunlight contribute to making Australia an excellent market for solar energy and emerging home energy storage products.

Now those households will be able to combine their solar installations with Tesla’s home battery pack: the Powerwall. Origin, the largest electric utility in Australia, announced that it started to officially offer the Powerwall to its customers today.
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