Tesla Powerwall

Tesla Powerwall 3 has arrived

The eagerly anticipated Tesla Powerwall 3 is now available. You can check out the specs right here.

The new Powerwall 3 has outstanding performance, big power gains, and efficiency increased to 97%

We’ll be receiving some of the first deliveries to the UK, so to join the priority list and to get a quote, just contact us.

Tesla Powerwall for homes

If you're a solar homeowner, a battery storage system like the Tesla Powerwall can help you make the most of the electricity being generated by your solar array. The Tesla Powerwall minimises the amount of electricity your home needs to draw from the grid, making your home more self-sufficient.

By capturing and storing excess electricity generated by your solar panels during the day, that energy can then be used by your home during the evenings or on days with poorer weather, which can reduce your electricity bills significantly.

The Tesla Powerwall comes with the ability to ride through powercuts, giving your home added security.  It's like having insurance for your home energy system.

It's also possible to fill the Powerwall with cheap night-time electricity, which is especially useful in winter when there is less solar energy to be captured by the battery.  With a solar PV array and a Powerwall, you might never pay full price for your electricity again.

The Tesla Powerwall 2

With its large 13.5kWh energy storage capacity, the Tesla Powerwall 2 is an ideal companion for larger households, or for those wanting to run their car on sunshine. For smaller households or those with smaller solar arrays, other battery storage options may be more suitable.

The Tesla Powerwall is a beautifully designed, sleek, minimalist product which looks great inside (or outside!) any home.  The battery system comes with a clear and informative mobile phone app to show you when your battery is charging and discharging, and showing how little grid electricity you are consuming.

What is a Tesla Powerwall?

The Tesla Powerwall 2 is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery storage system, primarily designed to be used with a solar PV system.  It stores excess electricity which can then be used when the sun isn't shining i.e. overnight or on days with poor weather. This stored electricity can then be used to power the building once the sun has gone down, when there is poor weather or even during power cuts (if the back up gateway is fitted).

The Tesla Powerwall 2 can be used in virtually any building with a solar PV system, whether that's a home, a commercial or a public building.  It works best when there is plenty of excess day-time solar electricity that would otherwise be exported back to the grid.

The previous generation of this system was called the Tesla Powerwall, which had a smaller battery capacity and fewer features. Details of a forthcoming Powerwall 3 are yet to be announced by Tesla.

Tesla Powerwall Installation

Tesla Powerwall 2 systems are designed to work with any solar PV setup because they use AC power (rather than DC) so can easily be retrofitted to an existing solar PV system.

The Powerwall 2 is connected directly to the building's standard electrics, so when the energy stored by the battery has been used up and if no solar energy is available directly from your PV system, you automatically draw what is needed from the national grid instead.

A Tesla Powerwall 2 has a 13.5 kWh capacity, which is sufficient to store more than the daily demand of a typical home. It has a power output of up to 5 kW, which can cover more demand for electricity at peak times e.g. if several appliances are running at once. For example, a kettle uses around 3 kW of power and a 1000-Watt microwave uses 1 kW – so the battery can supply enough power for both to run at the same time without needing to draw anything from the grid (assuming the Powerwall 2 has sufficient charge to do so).

The Tesla Powerwall 2 can be installed indoors or outdoors and can help to reduce energy bills significantly, especially over the summer months, as well as being a way to ensure your home has power in the event of a temporary power cut.

Tesla Powerwall 2 systems come with a 10-year manufacturer's warranty for unlimited cycles and 80% of the original energy capacity, when the system is charged using solar energy. This means that if your Powerwall falls below 80% of the original capacity during those 10-years, you qualify for a replacement.  It is expected that most Powerwall batteries will continue to function effectively for many years after the warranty runs out, although energy capacity will reduce a little over time.

Our Technical Director, Dr Chris Jardine, explains how the Powerwall works in this Fully Charged video from 2017 (please note that the back-up gateway was not available at the time of filming)

How much does Tesla Powerwall cost in the UK?

The current price for a fully installed Tesla Powerwall 2 system starts from £9,750 for a standard system, but depends on the complexity of the installation needed – namely whether you are on single or three phase supply, and the VAT rate you are eligible for.  Contact us for an accurate quote of installation costs for a Tesla Powerwall 2 at your home or business.

It is possible to get batteries for less than the Tesla Powerwall costs, but they will store less electricity, and be able to supply less instantaneous power.  Have a look at our range of batteries to make the comparison.

Does the Tesla Powerwall 2 still work if there's a power cut?

Yes, the Tesla Powerwall now comes with a back-up gateway.  The gateway sits on the incoming electricity supply to the house, and if it detects a problem on the grid, a relay trips and your house is physically disconnected from the grid.  Once you are physically disconnected like this, your battery can discharge to run the loads in your home, without causing a safety risk to workmen fixing the power cut on the grid.  It provides you with extra security, knowing you'll always have power in your home.

In this 2019 episode of Fully Charged, Dr Chris Jardine explains how the back-up gateway works, showcasing the installation we have done with Robert Llewellyn.

How many solar panels are needed to charge a Tesla Powerwall 2?

When calculating the solar energy needed to charge a Tesla Powerwall 2, it's the rating of the panels in your solar PV system as much as the number of panels that determine how much energy they can generate to charge the battery storage system. The ratings of your panels, when added together, give a number of kW that can feed into the Powerwall battery, but some of this electricity will also be used by your building at the same time.

For example, a fairly large residential 4 kW solar array (around 16 panels, depending on their rating) could produce around 20 kWh of electricity on an average sunny summer day, which would be enough to fully charge a Tesla Powerwall 2 and run your home. A Powerwall can run an average home throughout spring, summer and autumn, and for even longer if your demand is low.

At times of the year with less hours of light and sunshine, the same solar array might only produce about a quarter of the kWh that it does in the summer, which usually means that you will need to use more electricity from the grid, along with your Tesla Powerwall 2.

The Tesla Powerwall 2 for businesses

We are seeing an increased demand from businesses looking to incorporate solar arrays and Tesla Powerwalls to reduce their electricity bills.  Implementing battery storage solutions for businesses can be complicated, and we'd only recommend it in certain circumstances.  We don't want to sell you a battery storage system that won't be fully utilised.  Solar PV combined with Tesla Powerwalls are great for businesses where:

• Evening consumption is greater than the daytime, such as hotels, or if you are the owner/operator of housing blocks. This means there's lots of unused power in the day which can then be used at night.
• Where the solar array generates a large excess of power (usually a combination of large array and small daytime loads). This ensures there's excess electricity that can be captured all year round
• Or where there's a big difference between the day and night price of electricity. This allows cheap night-time electricity to be stored and used to offset expensive imported electricity.

We do not recommend installing solar PV combined with Tesla Powerwalls for businesses where:

• Daytime load is high, and/or solar generation is low. You'd capture some solar at midday on the sunniest days of the year, but for the rest of the year there wouldn't be enough excess solar to charge the batteries.

Our engineers can model this for you to see if this is a viable option for your property.  Contact our commercial design team to find out more.

The Tesla Powerwall 2 for public sector installations

More and more public buildings and public sector organisations are turning to renewables like solar PV to provide for some or all of their energy needs, especially now many of them have declared a Climate Emergency. Larger buildings can lend themselves very well to solar, because of the expansive roof space available for big solar arrays. In these types of settings, it can also make sense to incorporate battery storage, subject to the same caveats as described above for commercial properties.

This can help to cover days when the weather or daylight hours are not quite sufficient to provide for the building's needs during the day or can provide additional power for things such as electric vehicle charging for fleet or staff vehicles.

See this case study for a great example of how a council is using Tesla Powerwall 2 units with their solar PV system and EV chargers. The multi-storey car park has low daytime usage and a large excess of solar PV making it ideal for a battery storage system.

Councils may also be interested to use the Tesla Powerwall for their social housing tenants, even without solar PV.  Charging the Tesla Powerwall with cheap night time electricity, and then using it during the day, means fuel poor households can access electricity at 1/3 the price that they are currently paying.