Tesla offers battery technology for home use

FOSTER CITY, Calif. – Tesla CEO Elon Musk is trying to steer his electric car company’s battery technology into homes and businesses as part of an elaborate plan to reshape the power grid with millions of small power plants made of solar panels on roofs and batteries in garages.

Musk, a billionaire, unveiled a plan late Thursday for the company’s batteries to store solar electricity and reshape the way the power grid works while reducing pollution. The battery, called “Powerwall,” may have limited appeal initially because it will be sold at a suggested price of $3,000-$3,500, depending on the capacity.

Musk is renowned for pursuing far-out projects. For instance, colonizing Mars is one of Musk’s goals at Space X, a rocket maker that he also runs.

As with Tesla’s electric cars, which start around $70,000, the battery will probably be too expensive for most consumers.

For now, the battery primarily serves as an expensive backup system during blackouts for customers like David Cunningham, an aerospace engineer from Foster City, California. He installed a Tesla battery late last year to pair with his solar panels as part of a pilot program run by the California Public Utilities Commission to test home battery performance.

Although Cunningham’s home has not experienced a blackout in the six months that he has had the battery, it’s capable of running critical home appliances like lights and refrigeration and can be recharged by solar panels during the day.

“As long as a person has solar panels, it’s just a natural fit for the two to go together,” Cunningham, 77, said. “I consider it to be a whole power system right here in my home.”

Cunningham took advantage of state incentives that sharply reduced the battery’s $18,300 sticker price under the pilot program. He still paid $7,500.

“The value proposition now is around reliability and backup power more than it is around savings, but over time that may change,” said Shayle Kahn, an analyst at GTM Research.

The goal is to create networks of home batteries that could be controlled as if they were a power plant. That would give utilities another way to ensure that they can provide power at times of peak demand.