Tesla Powerwall helps slash electricity bill for early adopter family

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news One of the first Australian residents to install the Tesla Powerwall home power storage unit has had its power bill slashed by almost 94% in its first quarter, it has been claimed.

According to Natural Solar, that firm that installed the unit, the Pfitzner family have received their first quarterly electricity bill since the Powerwall and a solar system were installed in January.

Notably, the price for their power had dropped from $660 to just $40.46 for the period.

“Australian homeowners are used to power bills surging year on year with an average increase of 120% nationally in electricity prices over the last 10 years,” said Chris Williams, Managing Director of Natural Solar.

“It’s extraordinary to see such a significant decrease for the Pfitzner family and clearly demonstrates why we are experiencing such strong demand for our home and commercial battery storage solutions,” Williams said, adding: “The utility companies will be hurting from this disruptive technology as it puts the power back into the consumer’s pocket and we now have data to support the benefits.”

In this case, should energy consumption remain at a similar level, the Pfitzner family should expect to see a complete return on their investment in six to seven years, Natural Solar said.

The Pfitzner family’s suburban Sydney home includes four bedrooms, internal laundry, a pool and outdoor entertaining area. Their solar energy solution includes the Tesla Powerwall, an array of 5kWp of solar panels, a SolarEdge inverter and cloud-based monitoring software to monitor the output of energy from both the system and the Tesla Powerwall.

Williams said that “thousands of Australians” have now moved to embrace the shift to battery power.

“Our belief at Natural Solar is the uptake over the next 12 months will continue to increase as more battery storage solutions become available in market, and the price of power continues to soar nationally,” he predicted

The Tesla Powerwall stores solar energy during sunlight hours, allowing homeowners to use it at night, avoiding the need to sell excess energy back to the grid.

“Our number one mission is to educate the Australian public on the advantages this truly disruptive technology offers. This real life consumer example of the Tesla Powerwall in action shows the true impact that battery power can make to the average Australian family and home, Williams said.

Image credit: Tesla

18 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t worry, the power companies will just persuade the regulator that they need to up their fixed daily charges to compensate for people not using so much electricity, so their power bill will jump back up to a couple of hundred bucks a quarter pretty soon…

    (Remember, the ‘rules’ governing transmission networks in Aus pretty much guarantee the power companies’ profit margins)

    • You’re absolutely right. Eventually that’s going to drive people off the grid, possibly into local micro-grids. Add in the proposed new solar-panel + storage solution Elon Musk (and no doubt others) was talking about and there’s a strong chance we’re in for a completely changed energy market in Australia over the next 50 years.

    • Electricity companies already charge a daily service fee of a dollar a day or more already, so that article is obviously fantasy, the minimum a bill could ever be for a quarter is $100, even if you didn’t use ANY electricity

    • I get paid 98 bucks every hour for work at home on my laptop. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my good friend is earrrning 17k /monthly by doing this job and she showed me how. Try it out on following website….
      ————–>> http://tiny.tw/3pdG

  2. Bullshit, $40.46 is less than the connection charges.
    I pay more to be connected to the grid than I do for actual power.

  3. The problem with this is that he does not have enough storage capacity.
    In the Article on ABC he said it was at full capacity before the middle of the day and he still frequently needed to feed off the grid.
    When the connection charges would be another $150 or so a battery double the capacity may allow them to go entirely off grid.
    I am wondering if the $660 is including the quarterly charge to inflate the “savings”

    • It will change. What most commenters seem to forget or ignore is that this is a first generation product, and that it will get better. Someone has to go first, and kudo’s to them for taking the risk, but in 5 or 10 years when we look back we will be using batteries with far more capacity with far less cost, and wonder what all the fuss was about.

      Or it’ll be a fad and we will have moved on to something else.

      • This is a first gen advertising product for this company, not for others.
        There are plenty of companies which have been making and selling this type of product so this company should have not made such a half arsed product.

        • Redflow (one SH is involved with) is one such company. Their storage cell might not look pretty enough for a lounge room wall but I’d personally be wanting one of theirs vs Tesla one.

          • They were the first one which comes to mind with their zinc-bromide cells and I believe there is another company who are using a mix which can not become a fire hazard in any way unlike many battery technologies including the highly dangerous Lithium Ion batteries in the Powerwall.
            There is also a case for using Blue Gen fuel calls for storage but that also adds another fire hazard.
            I can’t wait for these to go into houses en-masse so we can see how many stupid peoples houses burn down and sheds explode when people accidentally damage the cells.

  4. What is the point of this article?
    Conventional Batteries and associated electronics have been available for a very long time.
    Unless Tesla batteries can become much cheaper, they do not offer anything new.

  5. I don’t really know how this works. Is it possible that the solar panels top up the battery, and then feed back into the grid? This could explain a bill which is less than the supply charges for that period.

    Right now, I would be happy with only having a $660 electricity bill per quarter!

    • Yes it can feed back to the grid, however all you get is energy credit, not cash. Your connection service fee will not be affected by any electricity you feed back to the grid. It depends on the provider as well.

  6. Like the gas powered Blu Gen power system for your home. As more people buy and new players enter the market, prices will fall. This product started at $22000ea.
    Gas from Australia to Japan via the Gas Storage Ships is cheaper than our house hold supply. How does that work.
    People will depart the grid.
    Options!!

    • Australia tax, we are being ripped off mercilessly for our energy costs by the government.

      You and me pay between 25c and 40c k/wh for electricity, probably closer to 30c – 45c by the time you add in the daily service charge. Big business pay 8c Kw/h.

  7. I get paid 98 bucks every hour for work at home on my laptop. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my good friend is earning 17k /monthly by doing this job and she showed me how. Try it out on following website….
    ————–>> http://tiny.tw/3pdG

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