Elon Musk On Tesla “Powerwall 2 Plus”

Elon Musk image: Duncan.Hull, CC BY-SA 4.0

During Tesla’s Q1 2021 earnings call, Elon Musk provided some detail on what he referred to as “Powerwall 2 Plus”.

In the Tesla Q1 2021 update, the company noted its energy storage deployments grew 71% year over year, mainly driven by the popularity of its Powerwall battery system.

Supply of Powerwall has always been an issue and looks like it will continue to be for the foreseeable future as Tesla says demand continues to far exceed its production.

No Powerwall For You!

Many existing U.S. solar owners looking to retrofit a Powerwall battery to their system will be disappointed.

“As a result, we recently shifted Powerwall deliveries to solar customers only,” states Tesla – and meaning *Tesla* solar customers. “As we increase our production rate, we may make it available once again as a stand-alone product.”

So, that’s the situation in the USA. Given Tesla solar products aren’t available in Australia, it’s not clear what that means for buyers here. Tesla has arrangements with some local solar installers and whether this means Australians will generally only be able to buy a Powerwall 2 with a new solar system for a while remains to be seen.

But Powerwall isn’t the only show in town. Ongoing supply issues coupled with significant Powerwall price rises in the last six months in Australia might see more Australians start looking at other solar batteries. The choice of batteries available in Australia has certainly grown over the past couple of years, but manufacturers still have a lot of work to do not only on price, but also reliability.

About The “Tesla Powerwall 2 Plus”

During the earnings call subsequent to release of the update, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made reference to “Powerwall 2 Plus”, which as it turns out is already being installed and has been for a while.

“So basically, all Powerwalls made since roughly November of last year have a lot more peak power capability than the specification on the website,” he said.

The current specification noted on the Tesla website is 7kW peak / 5kW continuous. As for the new claimed capability:

“It’s actually ‘Powerwall 2 Plus’, if you will. They have about twice the power capability roughly. It depends on how you count power, but about twice the peak power and about arguably twice the steady-state power of the specification of the website.”

Energy storage capacity  – 13.5 kWh – remains the same (learn more about the difference between power and energy).

The extra power capability will be unleashed with a yet to be released software update.

Prior to the earnings call, Musk gave a heads-up about “Powerwall 2 Plus” via Twitter, stating:

“Depending on production date, power increase power may be >50% at 30C ambient temp.”

Calling the change “profound”, Elon Musk said this was necessary as the world moves towards electric vehicles and power needs increase. It also serves Tesla’s aspirations relating to the provision of grid services, with Musk pointing to assisting in situations such as what occurred in Texas in February.

How a bunch of Powerwall batteries would perform in such extreme conditions isn’t clear. Tesla notes elsewhere that when temperatures are below freezing, the Powerwall’s “Preconditioning” feature turns on to heat the battery to improve performance – and during winter months a small amount of the battery’s capacity is reserved for this purpose. Tesla says the Powerwall’s operating temperature range is  –20°C to 50°. During the Texas event, temperatures went as low as −19 °C.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/tesla-powerwall-2-plus-mb1974/