First Tesla Powerwall installations in homes begin this week in Australia

Australia’s first Tesla Powerwall could be installed at a local household as soon as Friday, with the first shipment of the much-hyped 7kWh residential battery storage units arriving on Australian shores this week.

As reported last month in One Step Off The Grid, the US made battery units went on sale in Australia in December last year, and the names of the first local “authorised resellers” of the Powerwall were unveiled.

Among the first Powerwall resellers to be named were electricity retailers Origin Energy and Simply Energy, and Sydney-based solar installer Natural Solar.

And while installations were tipped to begin in February, the first installation at a residential address will be announced this week, although we can’t tell you any more because the story has been promised first to another media outlet.

The Powerwall – which was designed by the California EV company purely for the residential energy storage storage market, to be coupled with solar – will mostly be offered in Australia as a 7kWh unit, although Tesla has said it will also offer a 10kWh unit.

As we have noted, it is by no means the only battery storage offering – or even the cheapest – on the Australian market, with a large and growing number of different-sized battery storage systems now being offered, as well as a variety of different chemistries.

But it has certainly been the most hyped product on the market. One authorised reseller of the Powerwall told OneStep last year that the number of inquiries his company had fielded about the battery had been “staggering”.

“I have never experienced customers who have no experience quoting on solar or energy storage systems ringing up who just say ‘I want a Tesla’,” he told OneStep.

In other, more official news from Tesla, the EV-maker has announced that it will be extending its supercharger network in Australia after gaining approval to build a 6-charger station in Port Macquarie, NSW.

The network of superchargers – which can add 270km of range in just 30 minutes – is being built to allow free Tesla charging along the east coast of Australia, with two new stations opened in Goulburn and Wodonga in October last year.

The Supercharger station in Goulburn – the largest in the southern hemisphere – will now mean Tesla drivers can drive from Sydney to Canberra and back with absolutely no cost involved.

The Port Macquarie supercharger station, located off the Pacific Highway at Cassegrain Winery, will allow Tesla drivers to Sydney, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay for free.

Elsewhere, there are also superchargers installed in Euroa, The Star Casino in Pyrmont, Sydney, as well as the Tesla flagship store in St Leonards, Sydney.