Tesla Motors, one of the world’s foremost developers and manufacturers of electric cars is scheduled to announce their entry into a new business. The company is poised to begin manufacturing stationary batteries to store energy produced by solar cells for use after dark. The new batteries can also store power produced by wind generators. The batteries are intended for use by both homes and businesses.
The batteries will provide a solution to a problem that’s been hanging over the solar panel industry for years. How do you run a solar powered home or office when the sun isn’t shining? Tesla’s answer is to use energy that was generated during the day and stored in batteries.
Roland Hwang of the Natural Resources Defense Council told USA Today, “What Tesla is doing is an all-in strategy to bring the clean-air revolution to [California]. And as California goes, so goes the nation.” The California Public Utilities Commission has mandated that generators of electric power have stationary storage units like those planned by Tesla.
Tesla is already in the battery business. A $5 billion factory under construction near Reno, Nevada will produce stationary batteries along with those made for Tesla’s electric cars. Tesla has referred to the factory as, “a business unit that will address the increasing need for stationary storage battery systems, which allows for even higher levels of renewable generation.” Barclays analyst Brian Johnson says that Tesla’s plans call for the new factory to devote one third of its capacity to stationary batteries.
Tesla is planning for enough production from the factory to make the stationary batteries cost-effective. The market for storage of renewable energy is expected to boom in the near future. As more and more homes and businesses move to renewable sources of energy- sun and wind, demand will grow for ways to store energy for use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind stops blowing.
Peter Rosegg of Hawaiian Electric Co. told Bloomberg News, “Whatever Tesla announces on Thursday is just the beginning. Tesla doesn’t have to go after the market. The market will come to them.”