Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Need a bucket for Tesla's family.

Author | Chumen Cao Tingting

Tesla has just updated a blockbuster feature overseas:

Use solar energy to recharge the vehicle.

Us new energy vehicle media Electrek reported that Tesla has officially launched the service in the United States and Canada.

Source: Tesla Tesla car owners only need to set up in the Tesla application, they can use the excess solar energy generated by the solar system to recharge their Tesla car.

Musk, who has always called solar energy the clean energy of the future, has finally put it into action, turning solar energy into kinetic energy.

However, there is a condition for using this function, that is, a Tesla energy wall (Powerwall) must be installed at home.

01. Charge On Solar as we all know, renewable energy such as solar energy, wind energy and hydropower energy are developing rapidly, and even starting to produce excess energy, so how to use these energy sources?

Tesla offers a solution, which is to use Powerwall to allow Tesla car owners to charge their cars with excess solar energy, or "Charge On Solar".

Source: this feature was first mentioned in Tesla's App update in March this year, but it was still called "Drive on Sunshine"-"driving in the sun" in the version at that time, which sounded poetic. For Tesla car owners with Powerwall, this feature will use the extra solar energy they generate to recharge their vehicles.

Now Tesla has officially launched this feature in the United States and Canada, and all users with Powerwall and Tesla vehicles can use it.

Even so, there are still many limitations. The first is that the feature is only applicable to Tesla Powerwall, which is currently not available to users who use third-party solar storage.

In addition, if Tesla owners want to experience this new feature, they also need to meet the following hardware and software conditions at the same time:

Source: first of all, Electrek needs to own a Tesla, and upgrade the car system to version 2023.26 and later, Tesla Powerwall needs to upgrade to version 23.12.10 and later, and Tesla App needs to upgrade to version 4.22.5 to coordinate the two work.

After the upgrade is completed, the car owner opens Tesla APP and can click to enable the "Charge On Solar" function, and can set the cost limit and preferred fee location according to his own needs.

When switching to solar charging, the vehicle will monitor the charging in real time and adjust the charging power every 10 seconds as needed, and users can also schedule the charging time using solar energy.

Source: in addition to Tesla, Tesla also mentioned some charging restrictions:

If the current power of the vehicle is lower than the sign of the solar slider, the vehicle will use solar energy and power grid to charge.

However, when the power of the vehicle exceeds the sun slider sign, the vehicle will automatically switch to using only excess solar energy to charge until the owner's charging limit is reached.

Solar energy and household loads are variable, so if you want to recharge faster, you just need to raise the charging limit to the desired range.

Source: Tesla

It is worth mentioning that this function can also be actively scheduled, if the user in use, know that energy consumption will increase at a specific time, this function can stop solar charging after that time. Through Charge On Solar, the electricity bill of car owners can be significantly reduced.

02, large portable battery-PowerwallPowerwall is Musk's highly valued Tesla energy system, which carries Tesla's vision of a "decentralized global power company". Musk once said that Tesla's energy production and storage department may develop better than the automobile business in the future.

In 2015, Tesla released the first generation of Powerwall, a home energy storage battery.

Powerwall is charged by electricity generated by solar panels, or through the public grid during low electricity prices, and then supplies electricity to homes at peak times in the evening. When there is a power outage in the public power grid, it can continue to supply power as a backup power source, and Powerwall can operate independently without relying on the public power grid and provide power security for ordinary households in case of emergency.

Source: Tesla said that Powerwall is more like a large "portable battery", the first generation of Powerwall, the capacity is only 6.4kWh, after a year, the second generation of Powerwall storage capacity increased to 13.5kWh, and integrated battery inverter.

In 2021, Powerwall+ (plus) was released, and its capacity is still 13.5kWhGramPowerWall+ integrates energy storage battery, battery inverter and photovoltaic inverter. It is a household storage product of DC-coupled type, which is more suitable for households with new solar systems.

The operation process of Powerwall can be divided into three modes.

The first is the Self-powered mode, or solar self-use mode, that is, saving electricity bills by storing excess photovoltaic power during the day and using it at night.

The second is the Backup mode, or standby mode, which mainly provides backup power for families in the event of a power outage.

The third is the Time-based mode, which is the time-sharing electricity price mode. Powerwall can carry out the time-sharing electricity price with the power company, and can discharge to the family when the electricity tariff is at its peak.

Users can use Tesla App to set these three operating modes to adjust the SOC level of the battery.

At the end of last year, Tesla launched the "Tesla Electric" function, which makes Powerwall equivalent to a small power station, which can transmit electricity to make money when the public power grid is tight.

Source: Tesla, according to foreign media reports, through the Tesla Electric function, some users earn as much as $150 a day. This brand-new business model has formally challenged the traditional power grid companies and power generation companies.

So in a sense, Tesla is also an energy retailer.

As for the price, in March this year, Tesla announced that users in the US market can buy Powerwall separately, starting at $9200, including $8000 for Powerwall, $1000 for gateway Wifi devices and $200 for accessories.

But Tesla will give priority to delivering orders for a complete set of solar systems. In addition, users can not buy Powerwall Direct services from Tesla but from an installer authorized by Tesla, priced between $15000 and $18000, and can apply for a 30 per cent federal solar tax credit during the purchase process.

Customers who install and register Powerwall between June 15, 2023 and October 31, 2023 will receive a rebate of $500 per Powerwall. So far, Tesla has installed more than 500000 Powerwall.

03. At present, it can not be used in China. Although Tesla China's official website provides an introduction on Powerwall, it cannot place orders directly, nor does it set up a special purchase store.

Source: although Tesla's personal and family cannot buy it, there are already Tesla's supercharging stations connected to Powerwall in China. For example, the Tesla V3 charging station in Lhasa converts sunlight into electricity, stores energy through Powerwall energy storage equipment, and can generate 200 degrees of self-power every day, using stored energy to charge vehicles, effectively improving energy efficiency.

In April, it was reported that Tesla was preparing to launch his third-generation home battery pack, Powerwall 3. With the upgrading of Powerwall, household energy storage has also ushered in a large-scale growth. According to EVTank data, the new installed capacity of global household energy storage reached 15.6GWh in 2022, an increase of 136.4% over the same period last year.

Source: Tesla, among them, Europe is the absolute home of the household savings market. According to the European Photovoltaic Association, the growth rate of European household savings is 71% in 2022, with newly installed 3.9GWh and cumulative installed 9.3GWh. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Austria are among the top four markets.

Compared with the hot development of household energy storage in Europe and the United States, at present, China's energy storage market is still dominated by enterprises. As of the third quarter of 22, the cumulative installed 50.3GW of energy storage in China has increased by 36% compared with the same period last year. By comparison, the household energy storage industry is still in its infancy.

However, after being affected by power outages and tiered electricity prices, household energy storage has been taken seriously. At the international digital energy exhibition not long ago, many household energy storage enterprises emerged. For the domestic market, distributed photovoltaic and photovoltaic energy storage systems also began to burst out.

Source: Tesla and Tesla are about to open a second energy storage plant in Shanghai, which mainly plans to produce Tesla's super large commercial energy storage battery (Megapack), unlike Powerwall for individual home users, Megapack is mainly for enterprises.

Now that Megapack is here, can Powerwall be far away?

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Superelectricity Lab (ID:SuperEV-Lab), author: Chumen Cao Tingting

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