Tesla has joined National Grid’s virtual power plant to give Powerwall owners the chance to earn up to $1,000 per year to give the electric utility access to some of their power. expand full story

Tesla’s ‘Storm Watch’ was activated for ‘hundreds’ of Powerwall owners living around the California wildfires, says CEO Elon Musk.

Last year, Tesla started integrating features for Powerwall and solar customers to its mobile for vehicle owners.

Earlier this year, it included adding a new ‘Storm Watch’ to detect storms and prepare by storing energy in case of power outages.

Tesla described the new feature:

“When a storm or severe weather is on the horizon, increasing the likelihood of a utility power outage, Powerwall triggers Storm Watch. This mode automatically charges Powerwall to maximum capacity so it can provide backup power.

The Tesla app notifies customers that Powerwall has activated Storm Watch. The mode remains active until the weather event ends, at which time the system returns to its previously selected mode. It is possible to disable this mode by going to the Tesla app, selecting ‘Customize’ and then ‘Storm Watch.’”

It quickly proved useful as homeowners with the Tesla Powerwall in Queensland, Australia have reported that Tesla activated the feature ahead of a cyclone coming.

Tesla now says that the feature was also activated in California for some homeowners with Powerwall.

CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter:

“Storm Watch was active for hundreds of Powerwall customers this weekend as a result of the National Weather Service’s Red Flag Fire Warnings in California, and we will continue to activate it whenever there advance awareness of a potential power outage or physical danger.”

Some wildfires in California have been recently causing power outages.

Tesla decides when to activate Storm Watch and push it to Powerwall owners, but they can opt out of the program if they are not worried about the weather, or the possibility of losing power, and they want their home battery pack to keep cycling like it normally does.

As we recently reported, the rollout of Powerwalls has been relatively slow, but Tesla says that it is planning to ramp production throughout the second half of 2019.

We have heard of a batch of 250 Tesla Powerwalls going to the UK just last week.

Tesla has been having a tough time ramping up its Powerwall production, but we are now starting to see more projects including a new batch of 250 Tesla Powerwalls going to the UK. expand full story

An electric utility in Vermont is launching a new trial program with the goal to “make traditional meters obsolete” by using Tesla Powerwalls to track energy usage on top of the many other benefits of Tesla’s home energy battery pack. expand full story

Tesla is launching today the ability to use Powerwall 2 for backup power in Europe through its new Gateway 2 hardware. expand full story

Tesla Powerwall is the most requested home energy storage device by consumers, according to a new survey of solar installers.

The problem is that most of them can’t get Tesla’s home battery pack. expand full story

Australia is already a huge market for Tesla Powerwall for many reasons. But now you can add one more: the South Australian government has approved Tesla’s home battery pack for an important subsidy worth ~50% of the battery pack for up to 40,000 homes. expand full story

Tesla activated the special ‘Storm Watch’ mode of its Powerwall 2 home battery pack to keep the lights on at its customer’s homes with the upcoming cyclone in Australia. expand full story

Tesla’s plan to deploy 50,000 Powerwalls in Australia in order to create a giant virtual power plant is moving forward with 1,000 more homes as part of the second phase. expand full story

When we talk about Tesla being production constrained, we most often talk about the company’s vehicles. But the Powerwall, Tesla’s home battery pack, might be its most production constrained product.

Now, the company has significantly increased Powerwall’s price just as it is expected to ramp up production. expand full story