In a recent comment on Twitter, Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s Solar Roof and traditional solar panels will now only be sold as an integrated product with the Powerwall, the popular battery system for residential batteries. Tesla will start selling the bundle production energy products next week.
In a later tweet, Musk mentions that an integrated solar and battery system should have benefits, such as a more seamless installation process. The Powerwall battery will also only switch between the utility meter and the main circuit breaker panels of the house, thus providing customers with backup energy in the event of a power outage.
“Solar power will be applied exclusively to Powerwall. Powerwall will only switch between the utility meter and the main breaker panel, allowing for a super-simple installation and seamless backup for the entire home during the failure of utilities, ‘Musk wrote.
The Tesla Powerwall is one of the most popular residential battery systems on the market, in part due to the fact that it offers the cheapest storage option on a per kWh storage, according to data from EnergySage in its eleventh half-yearly Solar Marketplace Intel Report. Since the demand for the battery has resulted in long waiting times for Powerwall customers, Tesla’s decision to sell the energy storage system with solar power products makes sense.
Musk’s recent updates come not long after a Twitter interaction with ARK Invest Director of Research Brett Winton, which described the current situation with its Tesla solar system. According to the analyst, its solar + Powerwall setup has not yielded a single watt-hour since installation in January, simply because the connection did not approve the connection. In his reply, Musk noted that utility permissions are usually required when the Powerwall is full and able to stabilize the grid.
Tesla’s Solar Roof tiles have since been the subject of several news articles, in part due to reports from customers noting that the estimates of their system have had a significant price increase. The price increases are significant, and one customer tells it Ars Technica that their Solar Roof quote has been updated from the initial estimate of $ 66,000 to a much more expensive $ 87,000. “Tesla has revoked its solar roof contracts and raised prices for people (like me) who have already signed a contract with them,” the Solar Roof customer said.
Tesla did not provide details on these reported price increases, although the company’s online cost estimate for the Solar Roof potential customers now asks about the “complexity” of their roof, which takes into account factors such as pitch, number of joints, chimneys and other features. Tesla also emphasized in its online cost estimate that “complex roofs require more time and materials to install than simple roofs.”
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