Regardless of the hype last year, the 10-kWh Powerwall will not make it to market after all. Perceptive eyes may have noticed that Tesla removed references to its higher-capacity residential battery from the Powerwall website and press kit, but last week the manufacturer officially confirmed discontinuing the product in an official statement to Greentech Media.
“We have seen enormous interest in the Daily Powerwall worldwide,” said a Tesla representative in an emailed statement to GTM. “The Daily Powerwall supports daily use applications like solar self-consumption plus backup power applications, and can offer backup simply by modifying the way it is installed in a home. Due to the interest, we have decided to focus entirely on building and deploying the 7-kilowatt-hour Daily Powerwall at this time.”
Tesla’s 10-kWh Powerwall was the talk of last year’s solar tradeshows. The company’s battery guru and CTO JB Straubel even gave the keynote at Intersolar NA 2015. Inverter companies such as SolarEdge and Fronius have piggybacked off the news, offering solutions compatible with the Powerwall.
“Tesla’s decision highlights the benefits of grid interactive storage and the value of load shifting, peak shaving and ancillary services,” said Paul DeKleermaeker, head of Fronius’ U.S. solutions team. “We believe the business models around storage will continue to evolve and mature over time, therefore the underlying hardware must be adaptable and flexible. This is why Fronius has developed its Multiflow Technology, so customers can leverage their storage investments for these and other future high value use cases.”
In addition to continuing to offer the 7-kWh Powerwall, earlier in the year the company announced its plans to release a second-generation Powerwall this summer.