Highly regarded battery storage firm sonnen was one of the big winners of the 2017 Zayed Future Energy Prize, winning in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) category. I interviewed sonnen CEO and co-founder Christoph Ostermann in January just after the company won the prize. It was a fun interview because of how futuristic sonnen’s vision is and also because of Mr Ostermann’s clear propensity for fun.
Green Mountain Power in Vermont is offering customers a $10,000 rebate on a new Nissan LEAF in an effort to get more people to switch to emissions free driving.
Tesla has a new idea it calls aggregation and it is the next step in its plan to bring renewable energy to the utility grid. The first phase of that plan is the installation of Tesla Powerpack grid scale storage units at substations throughout the area served by a utility. The second phase is linking thousands of individual Powerwall residential battery systems to provide extra storage capacity.
This morning (or late last night, depending on your location), Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the Tesla Solar Roof was ready to go on sale (today) and more details would follow in the afternoon. It’s the afternoon, and as promised, the Tesla Solar Roof site is now live. Preliminary details include what homeowners should expect to pay for such a roof as well as how much money they might save as a result of the solar generation.
Let’s be honest, comparing Tesla to conventional automakers like GM, Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler Automotive is a little unfair — the “Big 3” don’t sell solar roofs or energy storage systems, just cars.
Elon Musk can’t stop. Tesla can’t stop. The cleantech revolution can’t stop. As if electric robotaxis, solar roofs, insane battery price reductions and gigafactories, reusable rockets, record-shattering acceleration, electric semi trucks and minibuses, and hyperloops + tunnel-boring companies weren’t enough, Elon Musk has decided to build entire cleantech cities. Well, he’s starting with one, but if all goes well, that could leads to hundreds more.
Tesla has confirmed unofficially that it will only offer the AC version of the Powerwall 2 in most world markets. Availability is said have been pushed back to June of this year.
The most popular CleanTechnica stories of the week were…
Since Mike and Jan Lister added a rooftop solar system with a Tesla Powerwall energy storage battery to their home, they have seen their utility bills drop by a stunning 86%. The Lister’s system consists of 20 BenQ 330 watt solar panels, a SolarEdge inverter (one of the few inverters approved for use with the Tesla Powerwall), and a 6.4 kWh Powerwall.
I’m not going to attempt to identify which CleanTechnica stories of 2016 were my favorites, but below is a top 50 list of our 50 most popular articles in 2016 based purely on pageviews. After that, there’s a top 30 list for December (also purely based on pageviews).
