tesla home battery: worth the cost? depends where you live - battery wall
The answer depends on where you live. -
And how you use it.
If you live in the south and already have solar panels, it may take you less than three years to cover the cost of a $3,000 Tesla Powerwall battery.
But if you live in the Pacific Northwest with no solar panels, you may need at least 16 years to cover the cost of buying a new Tesla home battery.
To figure out if the Tesla Powerwall battery makes sense to you, there are a lot of variables and some tricky math problems.
For example, a subsidy may be provided by your power company.
Again, these savings may disappear when you hire an electrician to install it.
The biggest variable is how you plan to use it.
You can connect it to the solar panel and then charge it with the free energy of the sun. Or --
If your power company charges more for power during peak hours-
You can charge the battery at a cheaper time and go all out
Use batteries when the electricity bill is high.
To keep it simple, let's solve a problem at a time.
In some places, electricity companies charge less for "off-peak" electricity.
Smart Battery owners will hoard energy and only pay lower fees.
This is hard to calculate.
This depends entirely on the difference in fees.
This is an example of Connecticut in New York.
Charge 7 cents per kilowatt
Hours of "peak hours" in the morning and afternoon.
Only 1 point in the evening.
New Yorkers can save an average of $40. 38 a month --
Pay off the battery in about six years.
Consider Pacific Electric, which serves parts of California, Oregon and Washington state.
The "off peak" time there is only 2 cents cheaper.
Ordinary people in this area can save up to $15. 50 a month --
And pay off the battery within 16 years.
But remember, Powerwall is only 10-year warranty.
Now, solar panels are used to reduce electricity charges.
They feed back to the grid, so utilities will pay you for it.
But Tesla batteries allow you to store energy at home. -
Could be completely out of the grid. The average U. S.
Household 943 KW-
According to U. S. data, 12 hours a month, 12 cents per kilowatt hourS.
Energy Information Administration
Average bill? $115. 89.
On average, 3 KW solar panels cut the bill by half.
On average, it takes more than four years for every American to pay off the electricity bill. -
If they rely solely on solar panels.
In the hot and humid south, people use 29% more electricity than ordinary Americans, so the saved electricity can be paid off in less than three years.
People in the northeast tend to use less electricity, so in theory the battery can pay for itself in five yearsand-a-
Stayed there for half a year.
The best deal is in sunny states where electricity is very expensive: California and Hawaii.
In fact, however, the cloud has ruined everything.
According to Tesla, the $3,000 Powerwall can only maintain 7 KW of its energy at a time.
This is not enough.
American families use an average of 31 KW hours a day.
A battery may not last all night.
So, it is difficult to unplug the plug completely from the grid.
You also need to buy expensive solar panels. A medium-
The size of the 3 KW panel is about $15,000.
Correction: The previous version of the story says Powerwall has 10-year life. It's a 10-year warranty.