Tesla Powerwall.... Doesn't pay to be an early adopter!!
Discussion
Roger645 said:
Interesting concept to charge it from my economy 7 tariff and then use that in the evening, payback might take a while though!
The batteries work really well with economy 7 as if you can't charge the battery enough via solar or other renewable energy (which is likely at certain points in the winter), you can top up the battery overnight with the cheap economy 7 for use when you'd normally pay a premium compared to a normal electric tariff. 
Combine the powerwall with one of these: http://sunamp.co.uk/products/sunamppv/ and you can also cut out your central heating bills as well.
I'm waiting another couple of years though for the early adopters to iron out the kinks, the battery capacity to increase and the price drop a bit further.
tankplanker said:
Combine the powerwall with one of these: http://sunamp.co.uk/products/sunamppv/ and you can also cut out your central heating bills as well.
That looks like a pre-warmer for the water supplied to a combi boiler for domestic hot water purposes, not central heating. And the claimed savings of up to £300/year - that's a lot of hot water!I have a solar PV system that's about to have its 5th birthday. I had a quote for a Powerwall and it was in the range of £7K which was a complete non-starter. For people with legacy PV systems the Powerwall isn't ideal - the PV system needs to output AC in order to get the feed in tariff which then needs to be converted to DC to store in the Powerwall but then needs to converted back to AC to use in the house. So lots of extra kit required - more sources for problems and efficiency losses.
You an see the costs here
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall
Looks like there is now a Powerwall 2. We're refurbing our house either next year or the year after....feels to me like you are better investing in better thermal performance of your house at the moment with the potential to add things like Powerwall in the future. Very early days for a lot of these things in my book.
I am about to buy a Cayenne....looked very seriously at the Hybrid but it was going to cost £1000 to get the power point installed on the driveway (Cayenne doesn't qualify for £500 govt grant or CC exemption). Got close to buying one but came to the conclusion I could only afford to keep the car for two years before it became outdated etc
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall
Looks like there is now a Powerwall 2. We're refurbing our house either next year or the year after....feels to me like you are better investing in better thermal performance of your house at the moment with the potential to add things like Powerwall in the future. Very early days for a lot of these things in my book.
I am about to buy a Cayenne....looked very seriously at the Hybrid but it was going to cost £1000 to get the power point installed on the driveway (Cayenne doesn't qualify for £500 govt grant or CC exemption). Got close to buying one but came to the conclusion I could only afford to keep the car for two years before it became outdated etc
Okay, so the issue was sorted about 10 days later. I actually complained on the Tesla Facebook page and this seemed to get problem moving.
Seems the system tried to reboot and in doing so blew a pretty big fuse. This then tripped a load of error messages compounded by the fact it couldn't 'talk' to it's server. Anyhow their technician came over and swapped a few bits out and it's working sweetly for the last 2 months.
For those that asked how it works, check out these two screen shots from the power App I have:
You can see on this day the Tesla system and the solar cells provided 85% of the power needs.
The grey line is battery usage, so from midnight to about 4.30am we were using the Tesla (no sun), then we started to wake up, kettle and lights on etc.. but as the Tesla was now empty we pulled from the grid.
Then the sun came up and the solar cells started to produce (green line), you can see their power increased throughout the day then started to fade to nothing about 5pm. The spikes were due to clouds.
The light blue is our usage, the grey line is the Tesla filling in the gaps between. After the sun went down (5pm) the Tesla powered the house until about 10pm, then it ran out.
This was the day prior. It was a sunny cloudless day so you can see the solar cell production is much higher. Also our usage was lower all day and so the Tesla was able to power the house all evening too. Overall the system powered 91% of our needs.
We had our first bill a few months back. For the quarter it was $65 +$20 for supply so Au$85 or 45 Sterling. This is compared to our older bills of around $700 (350 sterling). So savings are pretty good.
Plus, the system acts as a big UPC if we lose power, which we do about twice a year (storms, Ultra hot days tripping regional fuses due to A/C use etc..).
In reality I would have preferred the 14kw system Powerwall 2. I think this would have covered our needs 100% instead of the 85-90% we currently get. Of course it's summer here too so really need to review over a year.
I'll keep you posted.
Seems the system tried to reboot and in doing so blew a pretty big fuse. This then tripped a load of error messages compounded by the fact it couldn't 'talk' to it's server. Anyhow their technician came over and swapped a few bits out and it's working sweetly for the last 2 months.
For those that asked how it works, check out these two screen shots from the power App I have:
You can see on this day the Tesla system and the solar cells provided 85% of the power needs.
The grey line is battery usage, so from midnight to about 4.30am we were using the Tesla (no sun), then we started to wake up, kettle and lights on etc.. but as the Tesla was now empty we pulled from the grid.
Then the sun came up and the solar cells started to produce (green line), you can see their power increased throughout the day then started to fade to nothing about 5pm. The spikes were due to clouds.
The light blue is our usage, the grey line is the Tesla filling in the gaps between. After the sun went down (5pm) the Tesla powered the house until about 10pm, then it ran out.
This was the day prior. It was a sunny cloudless day so you can see the solar cell production is much higher. Also our usage was lower all day and so the Tesla was able to power the house all evening too. Overall the system powered 91% of our needs.
We had our first bill a few months back. For the quarter it was $65 +$20 for supply so Au$85 or 45 Sterling. This is compared to our older bills of around $700 (350 sterling). So savings are pretty good.
Plus, the system acts as a big UPC if we lose power, which we do about twice a year (storms, Ultra hot days tripping regional fuses due to A/C use etc..).
In reality I would have preferred the 14kw system Powerwall 2. I think this would have covered our needs 100% instead of the 85-90% we currently get. Of course it's summer here too so really need to review over a year.
I'll keep you posted.
Thanks for the info OP!
These are brilliant for places like Australia or the US, where you have lots of sun & the need to power big things like A/C units during the day. They act as a buffer for clouds/night etc and allow you to make much better use of Solar panels.
In the UK? Not so much IMO, we just don't have big electricity needs during the day, and even at night aside from a few kettles boiling I don't see how our modest Electrical needs would ever offer a decent 'pay back' scenario.
These are brilliant for places like Australia or the US, where you have lots of sun & the need to power big things like A/C units during the day. They act as a buffer for clouds/night etc and allow you to make much better use of Solar panels.
In the UK? Not so much IMO, we just don't have big electricity needs during the day, and even at night aside from a few kettles boiling I don't see how our modest Electrical needs would ever offer a decent 'pay back' scenario.
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