Hot on the heels of this week’s news that Tesla has again slashed the price of its Powerwall 2 in Australia, the US electric vehicle and energy storage giant is reportedly poised to launch the third iteration of its hugely popular home battery system – the Powerwall 3.
Rumours that a “cheaper and better” version of the Powerwall was in the works at Tesla first emerged last year, in details leaked from of an internal meeting.
This week, however, EV and clean energy news site Electrek says it has confirmation that Tesla has applied to have a new home battery storage product approved as certified equipment for connection with some electric utilities.
While no actual specs are available on the new battery yet, Electrek notes that, based on the leaked information from last year, the Powerwall 3 is expected to be easier to install, better looking and higher performing.
According to another Tesla-focused news site, the Canadian Drive Tesla, its sources suggest there could also be a change in the battery cells the Powerwall 3 will use, from using lithium NMC (Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt) to Prismatic LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) cells.
“This will make Powerwall 3 cheaper to produce, and follows the same change Tesla made with their utility-scale Megapack system last year (and the Model 3 RWD before that),” Drive Tesla says.
As for capacity, the same sources say to expect the same 13.5kWh energy capacity as the existing Powerwall 2, but with higher peak backup power, compared to the 10kW in the current version.
More to come.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
