For every household it is a big expense, the electricity bill. It doesn’t matter if you are a mother of three kids, a 70+ addicted to reality shows or a recently graduated IT student, paying the electricity bill is a pain in the ass. So the idea of going off-grid (generating all your energy yourself without help of the utility net) appeals to everyone. Unfortunately, the investment you’d have to make to get completely rid of your electricity bill is quite a considerable one.
Introducing Tesla’s Powerwall, the first attempt of a company to create a consumer-solution for the storage of green energy. We all know Tesla as car manufacturer from their famous Model S. But the idea behind the car can be easily applied to other contexts as well. By developing the Powerwall, Tesla aims to free consumers from their dependence on the utility net.
So what does the Powerwall do? The Powerwall stores electric energy generated by solar panels. Generally, most households are the most active during the morning and the evening. At the time the sun is out, most people are either at school/university or working, so the solar panel generated energy is lost. And when they come back and want to put their dishes in the dishwasher or wash their clothes, there is no green energy. With the Powerwall, this problem is solved, as it will store the energy during the day so you can enjoy it at night.
However, though Tesla is seriously attempting to lower it, the threshold for investing in your own green energy system is still a big one. With a price range of €5000-€40000, residential solar systems are definitely not accessible yet. And depending on the area you live in, having solar panels will not guarantee that you get to even half your electricity bill (e.g. the Netherlands only has an average of 4.5 sun-hours a day).
Taking all this in consideration, is going off-grid really in our future? Will solar panels become accessible for every household? Is Tesla’s effort worth it?
Sources:
https://www.tesla.com/powerwall
http://www.homepower.com/articles/solar-electricity/design-installation/so-you-want-go-grid
http://energyinformative.org/solar-panels-cost/
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Netherlands/sunshine-annual-average.php
Thank you for sharing this article. I enjoyed reading it.
While I think this is a good idea, I do not think this will be very attractive for Dutch households in the coming years. We currently have solar panels at home. Any solar energy that we generate too much we can sell back to our energy supplier. So in the summer we generate a lot more than we need. But what you mentioned, in the winter we generally do not generate enough solar energy. Currently this is no problem. What we ‘sell’ in the summer to our energy supplier we can ‘buy’ back in the winter. At the end of the year your energy supplier looks at how much solar energy you generated and how much you needed. I believe that we have 16 solar panels. This generates more then we need during the year. So we even get money back from our energy supplier.
However, this regulation ends in 2020. After 2020 the government will set new rules about green energy. So this maybe ends the advantage of selling your energy back to your energy supplier. If it does, Tesla’s powerwall will become more interesting for Dutch households. This is because what mentioned you become independent of energy suppliers. Also the design of the powerwall is a lot better than the current objects that store the solar energy.
But in the end I do not think that Tesla’s powerwall is interesting for Dutch households. Especially in the winter we do no generate enough energy. Furthermore, if you become independent of your energy supplier you save about € 240 because you do not need a connection to your energy supplier anymore. But currently there is a regulation that gives a € 377 tax discount if you have a powerconnection to an energy supplier in your house. So you probably save more if you do not become independent of your energy supplier.
Thanks for this article. It really is an interesting topic because it is applicable to so many people. You ask the question if this invention from Tesla is worth the effort. Although I think that it is at this moment not possible for so many people to buy a power wall. You mention the high prices of these walls and the profits are very limited, when looking purely at the gain in euro’s.
I think in the long run this invention will become worth the costs. Just as with every new invention the costs of developing are very high. And the product is therefore expensive and less accessible for the mass public. But, as we saw with other products, like computers and 3-D printers, the prices will decrease when the products are further developed.
Right now Tesla sees the opportunity to store energy from solar panels for the households. I think there will come companies or business networks which will enable the power wall to store energy from other sources. And therefore fix the problem with the fluctuating demand in electricity and the fluctuating possible in supply, because of the hours of sun and wind force.
Eventually, these walls will be not as expensive anymore and become a part of every house. The price of the houses will increase something, but if that is the case with every house, it will not matter. So I think in the long run these products are worth the effort to develop. To be a first mover can pay out if it will become the standard. The risk is to develop a product which can be copied by other companies which will not have the huge development costs.
Hi Maarten! You touch upon an interesting topic with the Tesla Powerwall.
To address your first point, I’m a strong believer that we as a society are heading towards a future where households, especially in remote rural areas, will become largely self-reliant from the existing power grid. As with a lot of recent technological innovations – 4K resolution, Drones, 3D glasses – Manufacturers that launch a new product are often able to charge prices to early adopters that are significantly above what will eventually become the average market price. Also, at the moment of introduction in the product life cycle companies often lack the economies of scale to produce in a cost-efficient manner. I would say, just give it time. the longer we wait, the more affordable and better the Tesla Powerwall becomes for the masses.
Another perspective that I would like to add is the role of traditional electricity giants like Eneco, Nuon and E.ON. Due to the inevitable commoditization of electric power markets, these companies are starting to compete less on price and more and more on innovative services such as Eneco’s smart Toon thermostat. They fear losing the edge over their rivals and quickly becoming a dinosaur in an increasingly changing world.
A smart move from Eneco’s side has been to partner up with Tesla to become the first official supplier of Tesla’s Powerwall in the Benelux. As you may have guessed, the Tesla Powerwall can be used seamlessly in combination with the smart Toon thermostat. With a changing business model and exploiting new revenue streams it seems that Eneco is bracing itself for the future. I wonder whether the others are also…