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May 21, 2015

$7,000 Tesla home battery: What do you get?

  • For now, it's an appliance that makes very little financial sense for most people.
    • By JONATHAN FAHEY
    AP Energy Writer

    NEW YORK — Elon Musk, the star CEO of the electric car company Tesla Motors and the rocket company SpaceX, staged an elaborate event last month to unveil a new product. Not a sleek new luxury car. Not a rocket that can ferry people to Mars. A home appliance — a battery — that can be mounted on a garage wall and ignored.

    The reason for all the excitement is because of what batteries like these might someday do. They may make the electric power grid more robust and able to handle increasing amounts of wind and solar power. In conjunction with rooftop solar systems, batteries may help homeowners reduce their electric bills. And some homeowners, like Mike Thielen — who installed a Tesla battery prototype last year in his Redondo Beach, California, home as part of a state home storage testing program — would like to use them to say goodbye to their electric utility forever.


     
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