Tesla Powerwall

Benefited by its cutting-edge battery technology, the famous electric sports car maker, Tesla, has expanded its business to the residential energy market by introducing the Powerwall system.

The latest generation of Powerwall 2 can be installed either on the wall or under the floor, and provides 13.2 kWh of storage using the lithium-ion batteries set.

Although it is said that the Powerwall system is the trend of sustainable energy, or is supposed to be a perfect match of the solar panel system. I am barely convinced on how the batteries can be a sustainable saviour of our daily life.

The Powerwall is fairly expensive. The estimated cost including installation is around $10,000, or $15,000 if bundled with solar panels. Even with a long ten-year warranty, the payback term is estimated to be 1.5 to 3 times of the warranty period. I.e., under the best situation, if the system keeps running without any decay and break down, your investment can only be returned in 15 years.

On the other hand, the batteries only store energy generated by the solar panel, or from a off-peak cheaper tariff. Once the power is generated from the solar panel, storing it in the battery or selling it back to the grid does not change its sustainable fact. The Powerwall system may help to save some peak power usage, however such benefit is fully eliminated by the expensive initial cost.

We all understand the sustainability of a product should be evaluated over the full life cycle, while the production and disposal of battery is never the cleanest business in the world. Spending tens of thousand dollars on a system that may eventually break even, to me, does not worth the environmental damage to produce and recycle such large amount of batteries.

Powerwall, it may be a possible self-supporting solution for rural areas with no power grid. However, looks more like an expensive fashionable toy for people with deep pockets rather than sustainability pursuit.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/battery-price-war-sees-tesla-powerwall-2-beaten-even-before-first-deliveries-44252/