Firstly I’d like to say thanks to everyone who contacted me after my last post.  I’m still in hospital with Dad and he is still fighting. The last few days were tough and I have a new appreciation for all the nursing staff who work over the holidays to look after those who need them.

As Dads sleeping at the moment I’ll put this time to use but trying to add to my Tesla Powerwall story so far.  This was going to be a post on getting to see the Powerwall but it has turned into a more general post talking about the Powerwall 2.

After putting down my deposit online and getting the confirmation email I then received a marketing email from Tesla introducing the new Powerwall and asking me to “place your order to receive prioritised installation” some two and a half hours later.

The week after I had a call and email from a Tesla representative, but with my Dad being so sick I had no time to respond to either.  I started to compose replies a couple of times but didn’t actually get around to responding until today.

In the mean time I kept searching the internet for any info on the Powerwall 2, scouring websites and using my Google-Fu to see what info is out there. The answers to most things are there but there is still lots of speculation…

You can look at tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall to find the important info including price (£5,400 in the UK) with an estimated installation cost of £1000, that includes the estimated VAT of £1050.  By my calculations that is VAT on the Powerwall and not the installation but being as I had a quote last year where installation is £650+VAT, the £1000 for install should include the VAT as well.

The Stats on the site (as of today the 28th December 2016) state.

  • Usable Capacity 13.5 kWh
  • Depth of Discharge 100%
  • Efficiency 90% round-trip
  • Power 7kW peak / 5kW continuous
  • Supported Applications 
    • Solar self-consumption
    • Time of use load shifting
    • Backup
    • Off grid
  • Warranty 10 years
  • Scalable Up to 9 Powerwalls
  • Operating Temperature-4° to 122°F / -20°C to 50°C
  • Dimensions L x W x D: 44″ x 29″ x 5.5″(1150mm x 755mm x 155mm)
  • Weight 264.4 lb / 120 kg
  • Installation 
    • Floor or wall mounted
    • Indoor or outdoor
  • Certification UL and IEC certifiedGrid code compliant

Interesting things to note;

  • The shape of the Powerwall has changed to allow floor installations (previous one was wall mount only because of its sculpted shape) and to allow multiple Powerwalls to be positioned closer to each other. An Australian site (natural solar.com.au) has pictures from the launch showing the floor installation with 3 stacked next to each other (about 2/3 down the page).
  • The capacity has doubled but the price has not, and as I calculate I need about 10kWh to get me through the night this is great news for me.
  • Unlike the Powerwall 1 that was shown in multiple colours (though only white seems to be available), the Powerwall 2 is only for sale in white.  It looks like you can get a founders series Powerwall 2 for free if you get 7 car referrals. Its red and hand signed by Elon Musk, Chief Technical Officer JB Straubel, and Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen. I’d love one of these but the chances of me getting a Tesla Model S (the X won’t fit in my garage) and then referring 7 other people to buy a Tesla are beyond miniscule.
  • In the last couple of weeks it has been speculated that there will be two versions of the Powerwall 2, one with a built in Inverter and one without.  This allows those with existing inverters to link in the Storage and those who are installing solar to choose not to.  The price for both seems to be the same.

For anyone looking at a new Solar install and considering a battery this is huge, why pay £1500 for an inverter that can handle a Powerwall, when you can just use the inverter in the Powerwall.

For me it means I need to think about what I want to achieve. I expect the DC only Powerwall to be more efficient overall, but in my case harder to install as my SolarEdge inverter is in the loft, and ideally I want the Powerwall to be installed in my dining room downstairs.

On the other hand I think the Powerwall with the built in inverter will be much easier to install as the space I want to put it on is the other side of the wall to the fusebox and meters and may give me more flexibility in the longer term. This could allow both “time of use load shifting” (with solar or an Economy 7 or 10 tariff) and “backup” options in the case of a power outage.

Of course if I can’t put the Powerwall in the house (Mrs gets to VETO it if she doesn’t like its looks) then the opposite will probably be the way to go, a non inverter Powerwall mounted at the side of my house, with the cables running down the outside of the house to the Powerwall.  Unfortunately I think this solution would mean the option for load shifting would be solar only, not allowing Economy 7 or 10 charging or backup power in case of a power cut.

I also think the non inverter version would work out more expensive for me as I’d need to get the Solaredge Storedge module to add on to my current SE6000 inverter.

Of course I could be completely wrong and when the installers get in contact we can go through my options and I’ll write a new post to correct this.

I’ll get back to getting to see the Powerwall 2 in the next post.