Greg TeatherEvery year during power outage season in the Seattle area, I think that this might be the year to invest in home-energy storage + solar. It really does look like Tesla's Powerwall is probably the best energy storage option for me but yikes. Anyone have experience with alternatives?
Maybe @dgentry knows 🙏
Denton Gentry@gteather We installed two Powerwalls several years ago. We use daily for load shifting, on a time-of-use electric rate plan.
- As you note, they are quite expensive.
- Though technically we own the device, Tesla behaves as though the Powerwalls belong to them. They don't provide an API and keep deliberately breaking what people reverse engineer.
@gteather For a while the house would switch to battery before power went out. Tesla was trying a Demand-Response program, for which CA would pay them (but not us).
Tesla now implements a voluntary Virtual Power Plant instead, which is still actually a demand response program but now part of the payment goes to us and helps further offset our utility bill.
@dgentry Very helpful. Thank you for the detailed response.