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Nissan drives into home solar and battery storage market

Nissan Energy Solar on sale in the UK
Sophie Vorrath
17
Nissan Energy Solar on sale in the UK
Source: Nissan

The Japanese automaker behind the world’s highest selling electric vehicle, the Nissan LEAF, is now offering its UK customers a packaged home solar, storage, smart control solution, as it pushes into the integrated clean energy market.

The offer, called Nissan Energy Solar, gives customers the option to add one or all components of its energy generation, management and storage package that the automaker claims can be combined to cut household electricity bills by up to 66 per cent – as well as charge their Leaf, of course.

Pricing for the fully integrated product package starts at £3,881, or just a sniff under $A7,000, based on a 4kW PV system and 6kWh storage system, and including supply and installation. That sounds like a very competitive price.

Already, the move by Nissan is being described as a bite at the Tesla cherry, where Elon Musk’s the focus has been on an electrified future, where houses and cars and powered by distributed renewables and battery storage.

In an interesting twist to the Nissan offer, however, customers will be offered the choice of a the new battery, supplied by UK outfit Eaton Energy Storage, or a second life batteries from a Nissan EV.

“This maximises the use of recyclable materials, for intelligent living and a more sustainable future,” Nissan said in a statement.

“Nissan Energy Solar is a complete system for home energy generation, management and storage,” said Nissan Europe’s head of EVs, Gareth Dunsmore, in a statement on Thursday.

“It enables UK homeowners to make significant savings on their household electricity bills, and become champions of sustainability and green technology.

“More than 880,000 people in the UK already use solar panels and this fully integrated solution brings a fresh opportunity to grow this number exponentially over the coming years.”

Will we see Nissan offer this in Australia? RenewEconomy asked the Australian arm of the auto maker, but had not heard back at the time of publication. Considering we are still waiting on the arrival of the new LEAF, however, Nissan Energy Solar Down Under may be a way off yet.

Note: This story is a restored version of the original which was lost in circumstances as yet unexplained by our web host company. Apologies if earlier comments are missing.

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17 responses to “Nissan drives into home solar and battery storage market”

  1. Miles Harding Avatar
    Miles Harding

    Haven’t heard back from Nissan Australia?
    Not really surprising, as they’ve been in total denial for about 5 years. In 2011 they were offering the Leaf at the insistance of the head office. The dealers hated selling the car because they were expensive and offered little or no after sales revenue.

    The denial continues as the expected re-introduction date for the leaf has been pushed out to mid-2019. Partly, this may be a good thing because the 60kwh battery version will be available by then, solving the range limitations of the original 24kwh Leaf. Also, the new models will be de-weirded, conforming more closely to the aero-jellybean styling sameness that makes current day car makes so difficult to tell apart.

    As far as a battery offering is concerned. More competition is welcome and will serve to keep the market honest.

    I note that the story only mentioned ‘charge the car’ and not ‘discharge the car’. Considering the size of a 2019 leaf battery (or any of the 300+km EVs) it will have an important role in eliminating import energy and busting the peaks and duck curves.

    I would not expect this sort of household duty will have any impact of the life of the battery, which is increasingly dominated by calendar life issues as sizes increase. Also, encouraging vehicles to remain garaged is good from a road congestion point of view.

    1. Ian Avatar
      Ian

      “Discharge the car,” and no impact on the life of the battery. Nissan’s UK offer would be only half useful if it does not allow V2G or vehicle to house electricity flows. You could see utilities fearing this sort of versatility and trying to prevent it but you would need two way flows of electricity to and from EV to allow better integration of the grid with transportation.

    2. Bristolboy Avatar
      Bristolboy

      It’s coming – http://www.cityam.com/284254/ovo-energy-rolling-out-vehicle-grid-charger-nissan-leaf

  2. Mik Avatar
    Mik

    I would like to know when car manufacturers will allow their cars to be used a solar battery charge bank, there sales would sure to take off and save the average household ten grand

    1. Ian Avatar
      Ian

      Keep plugging this idea. Of course people are going to want to use their vehicle’s battery for all sorts of applications like charge their home battery, help others in emergencies on the road, go camping, tradies charging their power tools, participating in the grid etc etc.

    2. MacNordic Avatar
      MacNordic

      Try https://sonomotors.com/ Sion:
      Bi- directional charge standard, two household outlets for up to 3kW power draw, possibility to charge other EVs with up to 7kW from the battery of the Sion. Reported battery capacity 35kWh+, for 250km real- world range.

      Even better: they integrated just short of 2kW of solar PV into the body of the car.
      Good for around 30km of charge per day in Germany – most likely around 70-90km in Australia… Cost of 16,000€/ 25,000AUD ex battery – either buy it for 4,000€/ 6,300AUD or rent it.

      Only problem: launch is only expected for 2019& no RHD launch date (or plans) mentioned. Maybe they would change heart if a host of inquiries were from Australia;-)

    3. Bristolboy Avatar
      Bristolboy

      Nissan are studying this in the UK – http://www.cityam.com/284254/ovo-energy-rolling-out-vehicle-grid-charger-nissan-leaf

  3. Phil NSW Avatar
    Phil NSW

    It begs the question why? Why is Nissan not importing Leafs into Australia? We have an overpriced Telsa or what? Our governments must be doing less than nothing to encourage competition in this important market segment. It fits with their collision with the coal industry and their other energy related policies.

    1. Mike Shackleton Avatar
      Mike Shackleton

      I work for an engineering consultancy specialising in geotechnical, enviro and contaminated land remediation. We had a Nissan electric van at the company on trial for a few months as the company is genuinely interested in walking the talk. The issue we found was that even with a moderate load of soil samples in the back of the van, the range dropped off significantly. One of the senior engineers owns a Leaf and on hot days he has to leave early to protect the charge in the vehicle, it drops off a lot in hot weather.

      I imagine there have been improvements in the vehicles with the new models but outside of Victoria and Tasmania it doesn’t seem like the Nissan vehicles are suited to Australian conditions.

      1. Mike Westerman Avatar
        Mike Westerman

        Very interesting Mike – I wonder if other EVs are similarly compromised by inadequate thermal ratings. Norwegian friends report issues at the other end of the spectra with reduced range in cold weather. It puts a shadow over batteries as storage for the network as well, if they will weaken right when you need them – a bit like the GTs they are supposed to replace.

        1. Mike Shackleton Avatar
          Mike Shackleton

          Tesla uses an active liquid cooling/thermal management system to protect their batteries from degradation.

          1. Mike Westerman Avatar
            Mike Westerman

            Yes but it would come down to choices in the ratings of key elements – fluid circulation, radiators/heat sinks. Nissan has had a history of selling “global vehicles” with few variations across the world. In Indonesia they still sell ICE vehicles with manifold and cabin heating, because I guess in Nepal or HP you need it!

          2. Roger Brown Avatar
            Roger Brown

            I think the Nissan EV NV200 van (Not in OZ) has the cooling management system for all the stop and start of courier work .

      2. Phil NSW Avatar
        Phil NSW

        It appears there is another problem for engineers to solve. Thank you for raising awareness.

  4. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    Sophie, do a story on electric trucks and buses. From australia’s Voltra, to BYD’s Chinese efforts, to Chanje delivery vans to all sorts of electric semis, and specialty vehicles, like garbage trucks, street sweepers, concrete mixes etc.

    ACT has about 90 buses all old diesel vehicles, why are they not upgrading to electric, considering their leadership in all things renewable?

  5. Chris Drongers Avatar
    Chris Drongers

    EMERGENCY SOLAR PLAN!!! Presses run as Western Australia rooftop solar destabilises grid on mild sunny days! The West Australian reports that AEMO has to invoke emergency procedures to ramp down conventional generation when solar gets too great.

    A suitable ‘dump’ for this excess power is needed. Electric cars, electric water heaters, pumped hydro storage. Something other than curtail solar.

    This newspaper article looks and smells like an early part of the education campaign that will grow over the next two years as the WA electricity charges increase to full cost recovery atwhich point the system will be sold off.

    Purveyors of renewable-related technologies from wind and solar through FCAS, storage and demand management better get their act together.

  6. George Darroch Avatar
    George Darroch

    Australia is a potential huge market for Nissan, so it’s disappointing that they have no announced plans to import their new Leaf here.

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