Dive Brief:
- Tesla Motors will unveil not one but two batteries at its highly anticipated product launch on April 30, according to reporting by BuzzFeed News.
- Jeff Evanson, Tesla's VP of investor relations, sent a note to investors and analysts on Tuesday, telling them that the company plans to reveal two new battery products next week. Many industry observers had previously posited Tesla would only announce its home battery. BuzzFeed claims it has confirmed the note as authentic.
- “We have decided to share a bit about what we will announce on the 30th,” Evanson reportedly wrote in the note. “We will introduce the Tesla home battery and a very large utility scale battery. We will explain the advantages of our solutions and why past battery options were not compelling.”
Dive Insight:
The wait is almost over. The industry will finally be able to get a closer look at Tesla's much-hyped battery storage product (or should I say products?) on April 30.
Let's start with the home battery — a solution that has the potential to disrupt the electric utility sector. The home battery product will be paired with SolarCity's rooftop solar offerings, and SolarCity expects to deliver a battery with every solar installation by 2020, Ryan Hanley, senior director of grid engineering solutions, told Utility Dive in a recent interview. The bundled offering from the nation's leading residential solar installer is just the latest sign of a growing number of vendors — from solar and internet service providers to home security firms and big box retailers — who are bundling multiple energy and home services.
"We’re really seeing a fundamental shift right now in the way solar players and service providers are addressing the residential consumer market," Omar Saadeh, senior grid analyst at GTM Research, told Utility Dive. "In the not-so-distant future, we could see a very capable bundled solution from SolarCity, possibly including Tesla residential battery storage, Nest energy management, and solar generation — all under some sort of financing agreement."
No doubt, that presents a major threat to the utility's relationship with residential energy consumer. But while the home battery may disrupt utilities, the utility-scale battery — which few observers anticipated would be revealed on April 30 — may offer them a lifeline. Electric utilities have shown formidable interest in utility-scale storage, and many view them as an opportunity to simultaneously integrate intermittent renewables, boost grid reliability and solidify their bottom line through infrastructure investment.
Stay tuned for April 30, when Musk is expected to reveal Tesla's new battery products. We will report back with more information then.
