It’s no accident that Powerwall is synonymous with home batteries. While here at Ipsun Solar we offer a few brands of home energy storage to best meet all our customers’ needs, here we’ll spill everything you need to know about the newest Tesla energy storage product, the Tesla Powerwall 3. Whether you’ve been waiting for this system to become available or you’re still just beginning to learn about the benefits of energy storage, here’s the full case for this new option.
What can Tesla Powerwall 3 do
Tesla Powerwall 3 has a built-in inverter.
Let’s just let that land for a moment! The advantages of the built-in inverter include cost savings, and it’s also fewer separate pieces of equipment which helps with space constraints as well as aesthetics and the electricians’ time and energy running conduit between elements.
On a technical level (skip to the next paragraph if you can’t handle a little engineering) with other batteries such as Franklin or Powerwall 2, we would need more units to connect up larger solar capacity systems. A maximum of 10 kW of solar arrays per battery was our limit. Now with the built-in inverter, we can install just one battery for up to 20 kW of solar. We will continue to realistically recommend 14-15 kW of solar per Powerwall 3 generally to avoid clipping, but this is still 50% higher than the previous energy storage system options we had, except for Enphase.
The customization of Tesla Powerwall 3 to meet your household’s energy goals continues once it’s been installed. Your system’s behavior can and will adjust to better react to and anticipate your energy usage and integrate seamlessly into your life.
For those customers who already have Powerwall 2, it will potentially be possible by the end of 2025 to integrate a Powerwall 3 alongside it for additional capacity and features.
The Ipsun Solar team recently completed Powerwall 3 training with Tesla, reuniting with some of our own team members who previously worked alongside them on solar installation projects.
“Seeing my old coworkers reminded me of the great times we had on the roof, I will never forget the camaraderie we had on the installation crew. We became family before we set installations records, and I think that was an integral part of our success. That level of trust and synergy is hard to find especially under immense pressure. It doesn’t matter where we end up, the friendships we made along the way go further than our place of employment. This is why I love solar, it’s a community of people tied together by strong bonds and a vision for a cleaner future.”
Benjamin Fisher, Lead Trainer for Residential Energy Onboarding North America, Tesla
Who is Tesla Powerwall 3 for?
There are 3 scenarios that drive residents in the DMV to want energy storage. Usually the most compelling is experiencing frequent, disruptive interruptions in grid electric service. Without a battery, going solar alone isn’t enough to supply backup power in outages because the excess solar has no safe place to go – for safety, all grid-connected solar installations must automatically shutdown in an outage to keep from delivering current to lines that may be serviced by workers restoring power. With a battery, the customer’s entire system transfers from their meter to a self-contained solar and storage configuration until the outage ends. In sunny conditions, and with a little energy conservation, it can establish a nearly perpetual source of energy for the home, in effect outside of the grid.
During an outage, its performance will be similar to Powerwall 2. Just like its predecessor, it will avoid being drained to 100% and so will keep an emergency reserve of restart energy, to turn on itself and the solar energy system.
It will be able to discharge 2x more power than the Franklin or the previous Powerwall 2 batteries (note this doesn’t refer to storage “space” but to how much power it can supply at one time.
Adding a second Powerwall 3 can be done in two ways, choose between:
Adding the storage capacity (that is, get a larger reserve of energy to fill up with more solar and last longer) but the discharged energy would be the same as having only a single Powerwall 3.
Adding a second Powerwall 3 with an inverter built-in, which can double the storage capacity but also allow double the energy to be pulled from the batteries at once. Note that option would require a second disconnect.
Ipsun is gratified to provide excellent home energy storage systems to those who need reliable energy most. More and more we hear from homeowners in certain areas of Maryland and Virginia where low quality electric service plagues neighborhoods. We didn’t realize how stressful this can be and we are proud to help make sure that families who depend on refrigeration for insulin, air conditioning for sensitive individuals and health concerns, web servers for work, and more, to have virtually uninterrupted energy without the noise and energy inefficiency of a generator.
Storage for your net zero goals
The next scenario is to support a lifestyle the approaches 100% renewable energy day and night. Most solar customers in our region use the grid to catch their overflow of surplus solar whenever they produce more than they are consuming. The home’s smart net meter tallies up a running credit at the same rate that the customer would pay for that energy. At night, when there’s no sunshine, the home draws utility power and uses up the accrued credit before owing anything for more energy. It’s easy to see the benefit – as long as the grid is up, it’s almost like a battery that can’t run out, storing up credit and depleting it when needed. But some customers want to take their energy independence farther, going greener than the utility’s grid energy mix. With an energy storage system and an appropriately size solar array, it’s possible to use stored solar all through the night during most of the year.
Storage for avoiding export under net metering changes
The third scenario comes back to the net metering point. Remember we said that the utility credits the customer for their solar sent to the grid at a rate equal to their usual rate for electric service usage? This isn’t true everywhere and some watchers think that the utilities in our area won’t always provide this 1-to-1 equivalent net metering credit. Those who buy batteries (and have the means to export as little energy to the utility as possible and consume their solar energy 24-7) will look smart in the event that Virginia, Maryland, or DC solar customers net metering credit rate reduces in the future. Though, there’s reason to presume that the previous rates will be honored for existing customers under “grandfathering” provisions for a period of time, offering an opportunity for more grid-tied solar owners to adopt energy storage.
Why Tesla Powerwall 3 over other batteries?
To wrap up our discussion above, Tesla Powerwall 3 may be the best choice for you if you’re installing your solar and storage at the same time and striving for the most sleek, compact equipment combination possible, because the Powerwall 3 contains the inverter (which can be disabled if your system is using microinverters instead). It may also be your favorite option if you want compatibility with your Tesla vehicle including solar charging for some models. We encourage savvy readers to explore more of its features that we didn’t have space for here, including its temperature control systems, its streamlined installation methods aimed at reducing the number of problems that arise for installers, and the growth of Powerwall sales worldwide generally in recent years that speaks to the product’s success and reliability.
Talk with an Ipsun Solar representative right away to get on our interested clients list so we can quickly hook you up with a Powerwall 3 as soon as we can get them.
