Tesla Powerwalls and other home batteries are proving extremely useful in today’s Texas blackouts after a snowstorm.
The popularity of home batteries has grown in recent years, combining them with home solar systems to optimize the use of solar energy.
Some have also used home batteries, such as the Tesla Powerwall, to provide backup power in the event of an outage.
Events leading to blackouts in some regions led to the rapid adoption of the relatively new company.
Tesla Powerwalls became extremely popular in Australia in 2016 after bad weather severely damaged the power grid and created significant blackouts.
The same thing happened in California in 2019, when forest fires put a lot of pressure on the grid and electric utilities had to cut power to men’s homes.
Now, the power grid in Texas is disintegrating after a snowstorm that has affected many important grid infrastructures.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott shamelessly politicized the situation, which has already killed more than 20 people, blaming frozen wind turbines, saying it is an example of why the Green New Deal is doomed.
This is despite the fact that the Texas network, which is managed by the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT), confirmed that most of the capacity that fell was from thermal plants (coal and natural gas).
Regardless of the reason, the result is the same: people run out of energy at low temperatures.
Home battery owners were luckier.
Several of them posted videos like this, showing entire neighborhoods in the dark with a single house with lights on, the one with a home battery:
Houston Sunrun customer and employee Robert Soldat has a home and battery solar system that provided nearly 46 hours of backup power during rotating blackouts.
He said
“Honestly, I can’t imagine how unpleasant this would have been without my battery.”
He is not alone. Several Tesla Powerwall owners are reporting some very useful backup capabilities (via Reddit):
Sunrun has partnered with Tesla to install home Powerwall batteries with its solar installations.
The situation is likely to increase demand for home batteries, but the availability of the most popular solutions, such as Tesla Powerwall and LG Resu, has already been limited.
Tesla has been driving an increase in Powerwall production, but has had trouble meeting demand.
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