Dutch electric utility Eneco announced yesterday via a press release that it will bring the Tesla Powerwall to the Benelux (Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg) in early 2016.
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Green Mountain Power (GMP), an electric utility servicing 265,000 residential and business customers in Vermont, announced today the details of the different options they are offering for the Tesla Powerwall. The company will let customers either lease or outright buy the home energy storage system starting at $37.50 a month.
GMP expects the first shipment to arrive in January, with a total of 500 units arriving over the next few months. Tesla recently moved its home battery production to the Gigafactory in order to accelerate output in early 2016.
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Local news reports in Chile are stating that “senior Tesla executives” met with government officials to evaluate a partnership with state-owned mining company Codelco in order to source lithium in the country.
The agreement would presumably be to supply Tesla’s Gigafactory under-construction in Nevada.
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Sonnenbatterie is the leader in home energy storage in Europe. The company is expected to represent a serious competitor to ‘Tesla Energy’ in Germany, which the automaker sees as an important market for energy storage due to the popularity of renewable energy in the country. Tesla’s head in Germany, as well as several managers, defected to Sonnenbattarie earlier this summer – hinting at a possible rivalry between the two companies.
At a press conference in Berlin today, Sonnenbatterie announced a new home battery pack, as well as a new solar panel/battery package and everyone want to know how it fares against Tesla’s Powerwall.
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While doing some related LinkedIn research, we found out that Ben Hill, Trinasolar’s President of Europe and Africa, recently left the company to lead Tesla’s Energy division in same the markets.
Trinasolar is one of the largest solar module manufacturers in the world. The company shipped 3.6 GW of modules last year and over 11 GW since its inception in 1997.
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Tesla has already begun production at their $5 billion battery factory, according to the company’s third quarter 2015 shareholder letter. In October, production of Tesla’s Powerpacks and Powerwalls moved from Fremont to an automated assembly line at the Gigafactory.
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Earlier this year, Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) and Tesla Motors, under its ‘Tesla Energy division’, inked a massive 500 MWh supply deal for battery packs to power AMS’ “hybrid-electric buildings” concept. Today AMS announced a new project under the agreement with Tesla to install a first phase of Powerpacks at up to 24 office buildings owned by The Irvine Company, a real estate company with properties throughout coastal California.
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Although India probably isn’t a large market for Tesla’s luxury Model S/X and even the $35,000 Model 3 will be a tough sale for normal Indians, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the company’s Fremont car plant does have some immediate ramifications. According to the Indian Foreign ministry, Musk gave the PM a tour of the plant and paid particular attention to the Tesla Powerwall which the CEO noted could, when used in conjunction with Solar, help India’s rural communities bypass the electric grid.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B89IrRil0Bk]
Last week we wrote about Tesla installing Powerwalls for “pilot customers” and revealing the first markets in which the company plans on deploying its new energy storage products. Now we learn that Tesla partnered up with SunEdison to bring the Powerwall in Australia by November.
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Tesla Motors confirmed to Electrek that the company is now installing the Powerwall, a new home energy storage system, for “pilot customers”:
“We are currently in production and have started installing Powerwalls with pilot customers. Over the next few weeks we will continue to ramp up volume production,” Tesla spokeswoman Alexis Georgeson said.
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In an effort to promote renewable energies, Vector launched a new campaign this week to offer 130 free 3 KW solar installations each equipped with Tesla’s new stationary energy storage battery pack, the Powerwall.
Soon after Tesla unveiled its series of energy storage products in April, Vector announced a partnership with the Silicon Valley car manufacturer to make the new products available in New Zealand.
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SolarEdge, an Israel based inverter manufacturer, released a very interesting video of a 24 hour time-lapse of the energy management system of a house connected to the grid, a solar panels installation and a battery pack.
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During a presentation at the 2015 EIA Conference earlier this week, JB Straubel, Tesla’s Chief Technology Officer, confirmed the Model 3 is “planned for 2018”. There’s been a lot of speculation around Tesla’s upcoming vehicle, which is set to be priced at around $35,000 before any EV incentives and have at least 200 miles of range. Just a few weeks ago at Tesla’s shareholders meeting, Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, said the Model 3 could be ready by 2017, but Straubel’s presentation indicates that 2018 might be more realistic.
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Tesla Motors held its 2015 Annual Shareholders Meeting today at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. During his presentation, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, announced that Tesla will be doubling the power output of the Powerwall, Tesla’s residential energy storage system, to 7KW at peak usage and 5KW for steady usage.
Today Tesla announced their first quarter 2015 results and during the conference call discussing the results, Elon Musk revealed that Tesla received more than 38,000 reservations for the Tesla Powerwall. Musk called the reception of the battery packs “crazy”.
They expect 1.5 to 2 battery packs to be sold per installation. This would mean 57,000 to 76,000 packs, or over 0.5 GWh, just for the battery packs currently under reservation. Musk said they are likely already sold out through half of next year.
Last week, Tesla unveiled their new battery packs for residential, commercial and utility scale use. During the event, Elon Musk talked about the “Powerwall”, a battery pack aimed at residential and small commercial projects, and the “Powerpack”, for bigger commercial and utility scale projects. Trademark fillings revealed today that Tesla obtained multiple trademarks for the use of the word “Powerwall” related to the sale, leasing, installation and monitoring of battery packs, but they also obtained the trademark for “Superpack”, which wasn’t mentioned during the presentation.
