Why Powerwall promises, but delivery to India is a long way off

Another product, the Powerpack, is a scaled-up version of the Powerwall, and can provide up to 100kWh. Tesla says Powerpacks are scalable, and can be used for megawatt- and gigawatt-sized power solutions.

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What makes these batteries special? According to Musk, today’s batteries — lead acid and lithium ion — “suck”. They are expensive, unreliable, have poor integration and lifetimes, are inefficient, and cannot be scaled up. The Powerwall, he says, would do to the conventional grid system what mobile phones did to fixed line phones, eliminating the need for cables and massive infrastructure. At the far end of the projection is the prospect of the average consumer going completely off-grid, and not have to pay electricity bills ever again.

Tesla has improved lithium ion technology and integrated massive power capacities — up to six times the capacity of a common lead acid battery in a single Powerwall — in a small space. Powerwalls are built to work without a glitch for 10 years, while most lead acid batteries die in three to four (or 500-800 recharge cycles, whichever is sooner).

When Musk debuted the Powerwall this April, he appeared to be targeting the upper end of the market — buyers for whom the idea of running a home completely disconnected from the grid would have appeal. The 7kWh variant is priced at $ 3,000 (Rs 1,94,000); the 10 kWh one at $ 3,500 (Rs 2,26,000). These prices do not include the cost of solar panels, which is going to be considerable, or installation costs. The Powerwalls also store DC power which has to be converted to AC for use at home, which will mean more investment in the form of a converter. Clearly, the Powerwall is some distance away from appearing attractive to Indian urban consumers.

The picture is different for rural homes that are less power-hungry. The Ministry of Power’s rural electrification programme focuses mainly on basic lighting facilities. The project design (as of 2011) envisaged supply of 58W to each household, with two light points of 9W each, and a socket of 40W for gadgets. For this, a single Powerwall would be good for multiple households. Localised micro grids could generate electricity from solar energy for villages not connected to the main grid. A few solar-powered micro grids are already functional in the country, and more could come up, conceivably using Tesla Powerpacks.

As of now, though, the bottomline for India is this: The Powerwalls have only just started shipping, and at current costs, a scenario in which they are able to replace current infrastructure appears far into the future. Tesla’s core market currently is sunny, rich California, and it has not shown any interest yet in manufacturing its products in India and, therefore, bring down costs.

It is also unclear how the Powerwall will take the wear and tear over the course of its life. The battery is still a first generation product whose evolution will be watched all over the world. Changes and improvements are almost certain, since Tesla has continued its policy of open patents with the Powerwall. As of now, it is a hugely promising product, but a cost-benefit analysis will have to wait.