Tesla cuts home battery price in SA by more than $2000
Tesla has further dropped the cost of a home battery to just $3500 plus installation – halving the payback period to five years.
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Tesla has cut home battery prices by more than $2000 to sweeten the State Government subsidy scheme and get more people to sign up.
Homeowners can now buy a Tesla Powerwall for $3500 plus installation by using the government’s $6000 subsidy — reducing the payback period from up to 10 years to as few as five years.
Speaking at a Clean Energy Council forum on Thursday, Energy and Mining Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan said home batteries were part of South Australia’s move to being a 100 per cent net renewable energy state.
“We want to be a trailblazer internationally for a clean energy transition and a clean energy future,” he said.
The Tesla Energy Plan joins three other virtual power plant schemes in SA — AGL, Simply Energy and sonnenFlat.
“Consumers can now choose from a range of virtual power plant offers in the market, providing them with more choice in how to reduce their electricity bills,” Mr van Holst Pellekaan said.
The $100 million home battery scheme began in October last year with a target of 40,000 homes within about four years.
So far, 2690 households have received or committed to installing batteries which must be capable of linking with other homes to create a virtual power plant.
Managing director of SA company Suntrix Jenny Paradiso said the home battery scheme probably hadn’t met initial expectations of take-up rates but as it was a first in Australia there were no benchmarks.
“There was nothing to compare it to, but it has encouraged a lot of people to take up energy storage,” she said.
Tesla’s announcement came as industry body the Clean Energy Council called for streamlining of regulations so households can get full value from home batteries.
Council chief executive Kane Thornton, pictured, said regulations, which varied state to state, were not fit for today’s system.
“There are a bunch of technical demands which make it harder to install systems and which mean the customer doesn’t get the full value of the energy they’re storing or sending out to the grid,” he said.
“Our energy system and the rules around it were designed for last century when there were big power stations and only one-way traffic.”
The council on Thursday released a road map listing reforms to help consumers get better value.
Connecting to the grid was complicated, time-consuming and costly and there were missing parts in the protocols such as how the grid communicates with home batteries, he said.
“In Europe it’s all well established; you flick the settings and away you go,” he said.
“Here we’re still at an early stage and we’re fumbling through it.”
Also at the forum, Tesla managing director for the Asia-Pacific Mark Twidell said Australia was lagging behind several other jurisdictions in integrating home batteries into the system.
A battery helps a householder make better use of solar, he said.
“If you want a big solar system for your home or business and want to connect to the grid, then having a battery makes it more flexible,” he said.
“That’s going to help unlock the beautiful economics of solar.”
The $3499 Tesla battery offer applies to a 13.5kWh Powerwall which the company says typically costs $5700 plus installation.
The scheme is run by retailer Energy Locals. Households will save about $300/year by not paying a daily charge, will be offered 10c/kWh for feed-in solar and can buy from the grid at prices below the default market offer.