tesla solar

Since Tesla acquired SolarCity, they have shut down several of the solar installer’s marketing efforts in order to focus on using its own car showroom to promote their solar and energy storage products.

But there’s one marketing effort that they are sticking to and even expanding: a deal with Home Depot.
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Tesla’s manufacturing effort at Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, which it took over as part of its acquisition of SolarCity, has seen some delays over the last year.

But the company now reiterates its commitment to expanding solar product manufacturing in the US following Trump’s solar tariff decision.
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Combining more solar power with the energy consumption created by electric vehicles has long been part of Tesla’s plan, but the rollout has been disappointing to some.

But it seems to be picking up lately, and now even Tesla’s Tilburg factory gets a new massive solar array.
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When it was still called ‘SolarCity’, Tesla’s solar business was so strong in the residential market that it was installing over 30% of the solar arrays in the US.

Some assumed that SolarCity was riding the growth of the industry while others suggested that the company was driving that growth.

But now that Tesla acquired the company and shifted their strategy toward fewer installations with higher profit margin, they are linked to an overall fall in installations in the market.
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While most of the attention around Tesla’s effort in the solar industry is currently focused on its new solar roof tiles, the company is still installing regular solar panels under SolarCity, which is currently transitioning to become ‘Tesla Solar’.

Through that program, Tesla has now started displaying new ‘Tesla Solar’ branded solar panels in its stores.
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Tesla’s solar and energy storage project with Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) in Hawaii is a perfect example to showcase the company’s new offering in the energy sector.

And it was never clearer than with this newly released drone video of the project.
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Tesla has been making more moves into the commercial and utility-scale solar plus energy storage business over the past year. Recent projects like the one on the Island of Kauai and a SolarCity/Tesla Energy project in Connecticut are good examples.

Now we learn that Tesla is looking for similar projects in Argentina as a company executive visited government officials in the country last week. 
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Since Tesla acquired SolarCiy in November of last year, the company has been trying to solidify the solar installer’s financials. They continued to move from leasing and offering power purchase agreements (PPA) to directly selling the systems and in December, they sold 26,000 home residential systems and 19 commercial and industrial solar projects that they owned under their plans

Today, they confirmed having sold another significant part of their solar portfolio: equity in another 36,000 solar systems.
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While Tesla acquired SolarCity over 5 months ago, it focused on keeping “business as usual” and it only recently started absorbing the solar installer more aggressively into its operations.

Now we learn that the company is shutting down its door-to-door solar sales operations, which has over 1,000 salespeople, in order to integrate the solar offering into Tesla’s own sale channels, mainly its stores and online.
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Tesla is launching an updated version of its mobile app and ‘My Tesla’ website today in order to add ‘Powerwall 2‘ and solar system integration.

The new features enable Tesla Powerwall and home solar owners to monitor and manage the “power flow” of their systems directly from the Tesla app – the same one they use to manage their Model S or X if they have one.
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The attention around Tesla’s solar products is mostly focused on its solar roof tiles, but those address only a new segment in the market – the new roof segment. Tesla is also trying to innovate for homeowners who don’t need a new roof, but who still want to generate their own solar energy.

This weekend, Tesla updated the ‘Energy’ section of its website to unveil new pictures – see above and below – of a new exclusive solar panel made by Panasonic. Electrek has also learned some details about this new product that will apparently shape the future of the company’s offering in the residential solar industry.
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Until recently, Tesla hasn’t been really active on the merger and acquisition front. The automaker bought a small tool and die manufacturer in Michigan last year and it also unsuccessfully tried to buy a lithium startup for $325 million back in 2014.

But through its $2.6 billion proposed acquisition of SolarCity, the new ‘Tesla Solar’ would benefit from SolarCity’s several own acquisitions in recent years, including Zep Solar, a maker of mounting equipment for solar panels, Silevo, a maker of solar panels, and ILIOSS, a solar installer in Mexico – the first country in which SolarCity has been expanding outside of the US.
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Since announcing Tesla’s intentions to acquire SolarCity, CEO Elon Musk has often been talking about the importance of aesthetics in rooftop solar installations. In the original conference call discussing the merger proposal, he came back to the aesthetic of the panels a few times. He said that the new panels will enhance the aesthetic of the roof on which it is installed and therefore add to the value of a house instead of decreasing its value – again based on aesthetics.

He said that he is confident SolarCity’s new panels, built by its Silevo division, will achieve that, but he couldn’t talk about it in details since SolarCity has yet to unveil the solar panel. Now today we finally got our first glimpse at the new solar panel.
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Last week, Elon Musk announced his plan for Tesla to acquire SolarCity and fold the solar installer’s operations into Tesla’s own business. The offer is still contingent on board approval and shareholder votes at both companies,  but Electrek has now learned that the automaker is going ahead with trademark applications to sell solar products under its ‘Tesla’ brand.
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