When I posted my first solar home video, you guys asked me to post an update when I got
my powerwall!
Well we’ve had for a few months now and can finally tell you what we think about it
AND if it’s worth the very high cost.
Hey y’all hey!
It’s Ashley Renne and welcome back to my green living channel where I show you sustainable
ways to have a healthier body, home and planet.
Now 8 months ago I published a video detailing our new solar panels, where I broke down what
solar panels are, the benefits, the cost, how they work, and what our installation process
was like.
If you’re new to the topic of solar energy for homes, I highly recommend you go back
and watch that first video.
At the time of posting we had just gotten our panels installed in July but were still
waiting on our powerwall to come in.
We finally got the Tesla powerwall version 2 installed 7 months later.
So what's life like now that we've added battery storage to our setup and has it made a difference?
That’s what I want to share with you today.
And real quick before I do, I have an important task for you.
Look at the bottom of this video.
Yeah see right below the title there’s a little button, do you see it?
That little icon that looks like a thumb.
Just do me a favor and tap that once.
Done?
Yeah?
Okay cool, let us proceed shall we?
So first of all, what is a powerwall?
The Tesla Powerwall is a battery pack that allows your home to store energy.
It gives you an alternative for powering your home.
You can use the Tesla Powerwall to power your home at night with the built-up solar energy
you captured during the day, you can use it as backup power, or even develop a system
to go completely off the grid.
How do we use the powerwall to enhance our solar setup?
Solar panels are great on their own, but they are limited.
That's because solar energy is only generated during the day when the sun is up.
But once that sun goes down, you have to go back to pulling energy from the grid.
If you have a battery storage system, however, you won't have that limitation.
During the day we generate more solar energy than our home consumes.
Once we got The Tesla Powerwall installed, we now had a way to store the excess solar
energy we generated.
At nighttime, that stored energy is released to power our home, so we don't have to pull
from the grid.
However - the power wall has its own limitation.
It only has the capacity to store 13.5 kWh.
What happens to our excess energy once the power wall reaches capacity?
Thankfully a power wall is not the only way to utilize our energy surplus.
Now that we have a Tesla Powerwall that holds 13.5 KWh of energy, the excess energy generated
from our solar panels first goes into the power wall and powers the house.
What’s left after the power wall reaches its 13.5 kWh capacity goes back to the grid
where we can sell it, thanks to net metering, a system available in many states that allows
you to get rewarded for excess energy your solar panels generate whenever it’s transferred
to the grid.
Here’s a look at our energy consumption for the past couple of weeks.
These numbers show how much went back into the grid each day after the power wall got
its share.
As you can see most days we’re in the negative, which means we had a surplus that went back
to the grid.
What’s our strategy for maximizing our energy usage?
Every power company is different.
Ours has a solar energy plan that we have analyzed to figure out how to tailor our energy
usage to reduce our bills as much as possible.
We have a smart home with a Tesla Model S, an electric car, and we control when things
turn off and on and when to start charging our car based on our solar energy plan.
Here’s the breakdown of that plan:
Super Off Peak is from 12a-6a.
During these hours, we get the first 400 kilowatt hours for free for that month, so this is
when we charge our Tesla and once we use up our 400 kwh, then it’s $0.045 per kWh, which
is pretty cheap.
Off Peak is from 6a-1p and 9pm-12am and it costs $0.71 per kwh.
During part of these hours, we’re generating solar energy though.
On Peak is from 1pm-9pm and this is when it’s the most expensive at $0.135 per kWh.
But these are also the hours where we generate so much solar that we end up giving back the
grid, meaning we essentially never get hit with that 14 cent per kWh charge.
Is the Tesla Powerwall worth the hefty price?
A Tesla Powerwall isn’t cheap by any means.
After paying for the product itself and installation, you’re probably looking at $10,000+ in most
states.
We got ours as a referral prize, but if we hadn’t, would we have paid all that money
for it?
Honestly?
No.
In my opinion, paying $10,000 is not worth the cost just to store 13.5kwh if you have
solar panels and net metering.
In our case, we have so much excess, that a power wall really doesn’t make much of
a difference.
As you can see, even if you subtract 13.5 kWh from most of these days, it would still
be in the negative.
So with or without a power wall, our power bill is still going to be low thanks to our
solar panels and net metering.
Here’s a look at our power bills over the last several months.
We got the power wall installed in January - notice how between December and March, our
bill didn’t change that much.
SO there you have it!
A look at our power wall and whether it’s really worth it.
After all is said and done, battery storage in our case really only comes in handy in
the case of a power outage - which almost never happens y'all.
Hardly worth a $10,000 price tag.
Are you thinking of getting a power wall, and if so, do you think you’ll still get
one after watching this video?
If you already have a powerwall, I’m curious if you feel it was worth it for you.
If you enjoyed this video please smash that thumbs up button, subscribe and turn that
notification bell on for more sustainable, smart home videos headed your way.
Until next time, stay green y’all.