On the 9th of this month, for the first time ever, Eskom, South Africa’s national power utility company, implemented Stage 6 Load shedding in which Eskom had to shed a load of 6000 MW to stabilise the grid. South Africa’s current installed capacity is 49.4 GW, according to the Draft Integrated Recourse Plan (2018) from South Africa’s Department of Energy.
What caught readers’ eyes the most on CleanTechnica last week? That would be the new Tesla Backup Gateway 2, which looks like a mini Powerwall; a titillating study on EV total cost of ownership in the UK that Bank of American Merrill Lynch conducted and shared with CleanTechnica; and a commentary on Tesla’s revenue growth juxtaposed against Tesla critics’ seemingly never-ending pessimism, which is typically very misplaced.
Fully Charged just released another very informative video about sustainable living. They make many videos about electric vehicles and this one includes an EV, a Tesla Model 3, but it’s more about how Tesla’s Powerwalls operate when paired with a rooftop solar system. Robert Llewellyn, the founder of Fully Charged, … [continued]
Tesla has started rolling out its new Backup Gateway 2 hardware with its Powerwalls, resulting in a much cleaner look for the overall installation. Instead of installing its communication hardware in standard grey electrical enclosures, the new Gateways come packaged up in a beautiful new enclosure that mimics the look of the Tesla Powerwall 2s themselves.
Tesla’s Powerwall battery has won Japan’s Smart Energy Excellence Award. This is just one more award in Tesla’s vast and growing collection — a collection that needs to be celebrated by not only Tesla fans, owners, and shareholders, but by everyone.
Following the Cybertruck reveal, I went to bed not being sure exactly what I had just seen, and woke up still thinking about it. My oldest son took one look and said it was the “sickest” car he had ever seen (this is a good thing), and my wife thought it was far more interesting than I expected.
I broke down in an earlier article why I have a hunch that the Tesla Cybertruck is going to include a battery pack that is costing Tesla around $108.26/kWh at the pack level (or better!), but I decided to keep running the math to calculate what it would mean for other Tesla products.
New York state resident Anthony Sicari has a home solar power and energy storage system that he used to power his home “off- grid” for 33 days. That’s a bit more than one month of electricity self-generation, Tesla Powerwall battery storage, and consumption. To be extra clear, the home only used electricity from the solar panel & battery combination during that period, none from the utility.
Tesla is now selling Powerwalls practically at cost in certain regions in response to California’s devastating fires.
I published an article in my TSLA FUD series on October 23rd about what I was hoping to see from the Tesla 3rd quarter shareholder call. I stated before any earnings were released that I was far less concerned about the actual per-share earnings and much more interested in a set of bullet points regarding where Tesla was with various upcoming projects. Later that day, Tesla reported earnings and they were widely regarded as a home run by analysts.
