Elon Musk & JB Straubel give more details about the PowerWall & PowerPack !

Elon Musk & JB Straubel gave more details about the Tesla Energy PowerWall & PowerPack during the Q1 2015 Shareholders Call !

Elon: "The response has been overwhelming, like crazy !" ... "Its has gone super viral"

- 60,000 PW reserved (38,000 customers ordering 1,5-2 per installation)

- 25,000 PP reserved (2,500 customers ordering 10 PP at once !)
=> they are sold out as of now through mid 2016, until GigaFactory can supply their first cells

- 2,500 solar companies requests to install the PowerWall, they can not even answer them for now

- 18650 cells used are generic, but some are optimized for the Daily Cycling version of the PowerWall and some for the Backup version, with different number of cycles :

• 10 kWh Backup Power is for High Power/Energy application and cells are similar to the ones used in car (Nickel Cobalt Aluninum) : 60-70 cycles / year for 1000-1500 cycles
• 7 kWh Daily Cycling: cells are Nickel Manganese Cobalt : 255 cycles / year for 15 years / 5000 cycles

- Daily Cycling PowerWall (several units) is for going Off Grid

- Elon: a DC-DC converter is already included in the PowerWall, and wired to the existing PV it will charge the battery pack directly, the existing DC-AC inverter is used to push to power back into the grid

  JB: the PowerWall will act like a solar panel in a way

- GigaFactory could be dedicated to Battery Manufacturing for Stationary Storage 

My thoughts on this:

So, from what they said, I understand that the PowerWall will charge directly from the solar PV array, which is a very good thing because it means less loss in converting power from DC to AC with the existing inverter and then AC to DC by the Charger that would be required to charge the battery pack

But, once fully charged, and when it's getting dark, will the PowerWall have the ability to push the right amount of voltage & current in order the satisfy the house loads only ? Or will it push full power into the existing inverter and generate full 2kW if it's a 2kW inverter ? That question remains and I would like to have even more details on that ...

Come join the new Facebook Group on Tesla Energy PowerWall & PowerPack 

More on Tesla energy ESS - Energy Storage System - on their website: http://www.teslaenergy.com or http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

Elon Musk Unveils the Missing Piece: Tesla Energy, the PowerWall and the PowerPack

Last night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled Tesla Energy and its game changing line up of new Energy Storage products : The PowerWall and the Power Pack


The Power Wall is pretty flat & compact, wall mounted to preserves space, and looks good in various colors, much like a car in a way
It comes in 2 versions:



- 7 kWh, priced at 3,000 USD, installed with a bi-directional inverter to Store and Re-use Solar Energy or Low rate Electricity from the grid (at night)
- 10 kWh, priced at 3,500 USD, running with a Charger & Inverter (not grid tie) which is apparently for Backup only, like the 300 units installed over the last 2 years by SolarCity in California
Up to 9 PowerWall units can be installed in parallel, to get more Storage Capacity, and Power if needed



The Power Pack is the commercial / utility version that provides 100 kWh of Storage, and that is expandable without limits, meaning you could have GWh utility scale Storage easily with this



The Battery Packs, using 18650 cells, identical to the ones used in the Roadster and the Model S will be made in the Fremont factory first, and in the Giga Factory as soon as it is operational ...