Is a Tesla Powerwall Right for YOU?

Just as an fyi for your viewers, we recently had solar pv installed at our home (20 kw in panels and 2 - 10kwh Solar Edge batteries) in upstate NY. the battery cost was almost HALF the cost for the whole system.

This is a good overview on how to go solar/battery for your home. I am a licensed electrician and have set up a few solar systems and quite a few car charging stations. We have a generator and back-up batteries for our house. If we were planning on staying longer I would have set up something more extensive and automatic. We rarely lose power here in the Midwest as our community wiring grid is underground. Once we move to a more rural area, want to save money, need backup power and have the ability to be off grid, then I will research and figure out the best options for us. Our experiment will be our travel trailer, where I just set up a 300AH lithium battery 50/100 amp solar charger with 800 watts of solar along with a 3000 watt inverter. Battery and solar technology has improved greatly in the last few years. Will be interesting to see what comes next...

Not sure you can’t still make/save money without TOU. What about using the battery to extend your solar power to cover your evening usage? With Net Metering being tilted toward the energy providers this is a very valid cost saving scenario.

I work for a domestic renewables installer in the UK. Our grid is pretty reliable compared to US, so most people aren't that interested in 'islanding' i.e. off-grid operation in a power cut. However energy cost is high compared to US so batteries are still popular to enable storage of solar generation in the day for use in the evenings, to avoid using grid energy. A few wealthier customers go for Tesla type 'gateway' architectures for seamless switchover, but a cheaper method is a manual switch (we call it the Frankenstein switch) with a smaller and more generic battery, which will give peace of mind in case of a long outage - yes you might still need to make your way down to the garage with a torch, but this is a once in a blue moon event, so it's an acceptable compromise for many.

In Austin, with a Ford Lightning. Sunrun quote was $12-15k for V2H. We didn’t even install a transfer switch. We built a 3.6kW used panel array, with a hybrid EG4 inverter, and added 10kW(soon to be 20kW) of off the shelf LiFePo4 12v, 200ah batteries, wired in series to 48v. Cost less than $5k, and should be around a 4-5 year payoff just charging the Lightning. It will allow us to use the Lightning, without losing power in case of another catastrophic weather event, and still have backup power. Nothing better for peace of kind like having a gas station in your back yard that pays for itself. Of you have the room for this type of off grid system, why wouldn’t you do it?

I just bought a couple of the $2500 kit (13.4 kwh). So easy to put together, I now have 89 kwh usable / 107 kwh total

I think you can find reasons to own a FranklinWH no matter what, for backup, time use, and self-consumption. This is a small energy center. I like it.

You can get pretty reliable LFP batteries and inverters for hundreds of dollars to max $2000, for 5kwh backup system, with a smaller solar panels, instead of spending tens of thousands in these fancy prepackaged systems. You just need to know how to hook it up yourself, buy some cables and cut some wires, get a multimeter and other tools, you will save lots of money DIY.

Thanks for the overview. As someone who has a robust (15 kW) home solar system and an EV (Model Y) I’m continually frustrated by the fact that I can’t get the two to work together. I hope it’s not too long a wait before an affordable vehicle grid system will come on the market.

thank you.

Now with my directional Tesla charging on the horizon Power Wheels seem like the no brainer choice

Really good brief overview.

Assuming you are talking about plug and play versions yes, but if you take in the idea of the sub panel, then you should also mention things like the server rack battery and an inverter or even a possibility is something like a Redox flow battery

The Ioniq 5 has V2L @ 1.8 kW

I've had 2 Powerwalls (current gen) for going on 3 years and my highest monthly energy bill in that I've had in that time was $56 and that was while I had 4 guest in my home for 14 days! I do have a Home w/23 Solar Panels & TOU programming. #VeryWorthIt #BoughtIn

Maybe omitted in this video due to timing and little is known so far about Tesla's V2G, but what do you think about the Cybertruck's ability to do V2G with proper equipment? Might be beneficial if you already have a powerwall system instead. Or if you're considering solar soon (like i am), is it worth considdering the Tesla system for that reason? Its cybertruck only for now, but i can't see why they cant add the other vehicles too, or at least once they really get their 4680 cells going for the rest of their vehicles

What about your hot water system? is that electric as it can be used as a battery too? When you say " you can go off grid" do you have a gas connection to the house? If so you are not off grid or all electric.

The Solar Surge guy on his channel has reported on his channel that if the Internet is down for over 3 days the Tesla Powerwall shuts down, that sounds bogus and dangerous. Can anyone confirm the VERACITY of that? Am getting ready to have two PW2s installed. Can't do the 3s because I have Enphase IQ inverters and the Enphase batteries are EXPENSIVE

If you have or intend to install Solar panels, the equation changes completely.

What happened to your Span panel?