Tesla Looks to Power Your Home (and the World) With Powerwall Battery Thingy

Powerwall is on the wall. | Image: Tesla

Elon Musk has done his fair share of insanely cool things in his 43 years of existence. He’s brought a sexy electric car to market with Tesla Motors. Then there’s that privately funded space thing he’s pioneering with the ultimate goal of people living on other planets. Let’s not forget co-founding PayPal, for goodness sake. You know, run-of-the-mill prodigy type stuff you see once or twice a generation.

Musk recently launched Tesla Energy, a “suite of batteries for homes, business and utilities,” according to a press release. The home component is dubbed Powerwall–a wall-mounted rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack that stores electric from either your solar panel system or even from the grid itself during off-peak times, when rates are usually at their cheapest. The smaller 7 kWh ($3,000 + an AC/DC inverter and installation) model cycles daily and supplements your daily energy usage, while the larger 10 kWh ($3,500+) does that and can also act as a back-up power source. It cycles weekly.

Say goodbye to stinky, noisy and downright uncool gas generators. Much like the Tesla, the Powerwall promises to be sleek and sexy. Here’s more from Bloomberg Business:

Musk said the home batteries look like “a beautiful sculpture on the wall.” They come in different colors, including red, blue, gray, black and white hues similar to the paint used for Tesla’s Model S sedan.

While some are arguing whether or not this announcement kills the future of nuclear power, others are simply crunching the numbers to see if the new-fangled battery is worth it to the average homeowner. That seems to largely depend on where you live in the country. In Philadelphia, for example, the rate per kWh is currently 15.74 cents to generate, transmit and distribute electricity to your home based on an average monthly usage of 700 kWh, according to PECO’s Ben Armstrong.

Of course, some things transcend the upfront and operating costs. Through Tesla Energy, Musk is “amplifying its efforts to accelerate the move away from fossil fuels to a sustainable energy future.” So, will he completely revolutionize the way people power their homes, businesses or even towns and cities? If his previous track record is any indication, we’d bank on it happening. Fingers crossed on Hyperloop as well!