Elon Musk, the owner of the electric cars manufacturer Tesla Motors, has announced Tesla Energy, a suite of batteries to power homes as well as businesses. The first products that will be available in the USA this summer are Tesla Powerwall, a lithium ion battery in 7 kWh and 10 kWh models, and Powerpack, a 100 kWh unit for higher demands. The idea is to revolutionize the management of electricity by helping to achieve autonomy from suppliers.

Alternative energy sources are spreading more and more thanks to the advantages they have on fossil fuels but are not perfect so generally one must keep connected to the electric grid. Solar energy is an immense source of energy but is available only during the day.

One can often sell the surplus electricity produced during the day by solar panels to a utility. The problem is that the company buys it at a very low price, much lower than what one pays for the electricity used during the night. Of course, one generally uses electricity especially during the day but also in the best case scenario one is far away from autonomy.

The real step forward can be given by an accumulator which allows to use at night the surplus energy produced during the day with solar panels. It’s an obvious concept but so far batteries were too big and limited to be able to put it into practice in a convenient manner. With the Tesla Powerwall battery, Elon Musk promises to change that.

Tesla’s new batteries are an evolution of those used for electric cars produced by the company. The Powerwall has a size of 130 x 86 x 18 cm (51.2″ x 33.9″ x 7.1″) and is made to be hung on a wall. The idea is to have in your home or business a battery that doesn’t take up much space but can be integrated into the electrical system as transparently as possible. It’s also possible to connect more batteries for bigger needs, for example in a business.

Elon Musk is also the president of SolarCity, an American company that designs and installs solar energy systems that last year bought Silevo, a manufacturer of high-efficiency solar panels. There are no official announcements of offers of integrated solutions with solar panels and a Powerwall battery but it would be strange not to see offers of this kind, also from other companies.

The Powerpack is a bigger battery that will be offered primarily to utilities that exploit the production of solar and wind energy. The surplus energy produced at peak times can be stored and fed into the grid at other times such as during the night.

Today’s battery technology seems mature enough to allow alternative sources to overcome the shortcomings that have so far slowed their spread. This type of solution will also solve the problems of grid management as grids already struggle to handle the amount of energy produced by solar panels circulating during the day.

Other companies are exploring solutions similar to that of Tesla Motors but meanwhile Elon Musk. This isn’t accidental because we’re talking about a man with cutting-edge ideas. A few years ago even his friends considered him crazy when he wanted to open an aerospace company and now his Dragon spacecraft is docked to the International Space Station. It’s for this reason that the Tesla Energy project and the Powerwall and Powerpack batteries are taken very seriously.