Home battery ‘will cut bills by £550 a year’
‘The potential to be huge’
A RECHARGEABLE home battery that can store enough electricity to run a house for a day is to be marketed in Britain.
US firm Tesla – which makes electric cars – says its device will revolutionise the power sector.
Sitting in a family garage or on an outside wall, the battery recharges when prices are cheap by buying up power from the national grid. It then runs the house from the battery during times of peak demand – or can act as a back-up during a power cut.
The device, which is the size of a boiler and costs around £2,000, is expected to be available in the UK by the end of the year. A larger model that can be used by businesses is planned for next year.
Tesla founder Elon Musk said the technology would bring ‘a fundamental transformation [in] how energy is delivered across the Earth’.
The battery, called a Tesla Powerwall, can also store power from rooftop solar panels, allowing families to dramatically cut their energy bills. Energy experts said battery technology such as the Tesla model could cut the average family’s bill by up to £550 a year.
The average family uses 3,200 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, spending £605.
Tesla, which is run by PayPal founder Elon Musk, uses a special type of rechargeable lithium-ion battery, allowing it to store more power than traditional batteries for its cars. Now it is expanding the uses of its technology in an ambitious move.
The Powerwall is 1.3m by 68cm, making it small enough to be hung inside a garage on or an outside wall.
They will go on sale in August in the US, with the first British units to be sold by the end of the year. Catherine Mitchell, professor of energy policy at the University of Exeter, said the device is a ‘nail in the coffin of conventional utilities’.
She said: ‘The question is no longer whether decentralisation will happen within the energy system, but when the tipping point will be.’
Ann Robinson, consumer director at UK price comparison site uSwitch, said: ‘This is at a very early stage of development but it has the potential to be huge.’
She said anyone using the batteries in conjunction with rooftop solar panels could save up to £550 a year.
‘It could lead to a massive reduction in consumer bills,’ she added.
Jason Ballard, founder of US home retailer TreeHouse, which will help sell the batteries, said: ‘I think in the near future, having a battery in your home will be as normal as having a water heater or a dishwasher.
‘This just takes us one step closer to being able to power homes completely without the use of fossil fuels.’