Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
The unexpected sell-out of Tesla’s Powerwall energy storage battery until mid-2016 will not affect plans for a UK rollout that year.
The firm told Utility Week the UK market arrival is still due during the first quarter of 2016.
A spokesperson for the company said: “Reservations have come in worldwide but will be spread over time as we work on entering different markets with Tesla Energy.”
Tesla launched the Powerwall, which is designed to collect and store excess energy from roof-mounted solar panels and small-scale wind turbines, in May. The company claims the technology will “wean the world off fossil fuels”.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said that interest in the batteries had been “crazy off the hook” with 38,000 orders having been placed in the first week, and the company predicts that filling them all will take until at least mid-2016.
The Powerwall is available in 10kWh form, set up for backup applications or as a 7kWh unit, optimised for daily-use applications. Both can be connected with solar or grid and both can provide backup power.
Tesla said it is working with utilities and other renewable power partners around the world to deploy storage on the grid to “improve resiliency and cleanliness of the grid as a whole”. However, details have not yet been released about any possible deals with UK energy companies.
Tesla announced in early June that it would deploy its first utility-scale energy storage batteries in the Republic of Ireland.
Since the news of Tesla broke, UK companies have been quick to release their own energy storage batteries. Tech start-up Powervault announced in mid-June that it had raised £700,000 through investment crowdfunding to install 50,000 2kWh and 4kWh home energy storage systems in the UK by 2020.
Read Utility Week’s analysis of energy storage here.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.