Elon Musk took to the stage during a Tesla Motors event near LA today in order to announce a new, potentially revolutionary venture from the company, with the CEO revealing that they were working on bringing electricity to businesses and households with the help of super-sized rechargeable lithium-ion battery units in a production the company calls ‘Tesla Energy.’
The new stackable battery system, which will work by way of stored solar energy, will potentially prove to be a cost-effective means of storing electricity on a huge scale, starting from backup systems for people with rooftop solar panels, to the major market of business and utilities. Musk and Tesla are on track to provide companies with a means of cheaper electricity, with the battery system able to balance its electricity usage between peak and off-peak hours in order to deliver at lower rates. Musk stated that this new system was his way of “getting the US off fossil fuels altogether.” “The issue with existing batteries is that they suck,” Musk said during the conference. “They are expensive, unreliable and bad in every way.”
Also See: Microsoft HoloLens Demo Offers a Glimpse into the Future of Virtual Reality
Watch the CEO unveiling the new system in the video below:
Unfortunately the Tesla Powerwall, the name given to the home battery version of the electricity system, is not cheap enough yet for it to make economic sense. Coming in at a whopping $3,500 for a 10-kilowatt-hour version, it’s simply not an ideal choice for the majority of potential customers. While battery prices are falling quickly, the cost to install the system and to add its inverter would potentially double its price to $7,000, thus making it not viable for many homes other than the wealthy or those who really want their electricity to be battery-powered.
The batteries in the home version of the new tech are also stackable, with nine of them being able to be implemented in one household. Their ability to save energy during low-rate off-peak times is also a tantalizing glimpse for the future, with it potentially set to be a bold new step into the future of how homes will be powered, even if its price range is out of the range of common means right now.
The batteries are the same that are cut from the same cloth as those used to power Tesla’s current line of electric cars, with the company estimating that 900 million units would be needed to move the world’s entire energy supply to its new system. The units are already available for pre-order and are set to be shipped this summer.
Header Image: Getty Images
