Tesla Powerwall2 installed for Robert Llewellyn
If you have solar PV panels, as actor, TV presenter and renewable energy enthusiast Robert Llewellyn does, have you looked into storing the electricity they generate using a battery such as the Tesla Powerwall2?
If you can't afford a Tesla car, why not get a Tesla Powerwall2 installed at home instead? Robert Llewellyn, who's had solar PV panels at his home since 2011, has done just that. To have PV panels and a Powerwall installed will cost around £7,000
Joju Solar has completed the installation of the innovative Tesla Powerwall2 at the home of actor and TV presenter Robert Llewellyn, integrating it with a new expanded solar photovoltaic (PV) roof system. It's one of the first such installtions of the Powerwall in the UK, which become available to order here only in May.
What is the Powerwall2?
The unit is a high-capacity battery which turns standard residential solar panels from a power source that can only be used in real-time during the day to a system that stores energy generated during daylight hours for use at any time, enabling homes with this technology to use their solar-generated electricity whenever it’s needed - day or night. The system can also feed zero-carbon electricity into electric vehicles, making transport cheaper and greener too.
Robert Llewellyn is a happy customer
Robert Llewellyn is a comic actor (Red Dwarf), writer and TV presenter (Scrapheap Challenge) but also a technology and science enthusiast who runs his own YouTube channel, Fully Charged, on the theme of renewable energy technology. He's seen at first hand how a solar PV and battery system could generate nearly all the electricity needed for a busy family home and he decided to invest in the new generation of Tesla's system for his own property.
He says he's impressed: "I've had solar since 2011 and as soon as you have it, you want a battery. In theory it makes so much sense and for once in life the practice proves the point. So I've upgraded our panels to a 5.3 kWp system and now store any electricity we don't use in the Powerwall.' He says in the first two days of the system being up and running, his mains electricity useage fell by 95 per cent.
'Okay, it's summer, it's sunny, and over the year I'm sure it won't manage that, but it's obvious it will reduce our overall demand on the grid by a substantial amount and utilise far more of the power the panels produce.'
Oxford University lecturer on renewable energy, Dr Chris Jardine, says electricity storage is vital in achieving a greener economy: 'As increasing amounts of our electricity supply comes from renewable sources, electricity storage is needed to ensure we have power when we want it. The Tesla Powerwall2, with its large 13.4kWh capacity, is a game changer in terms of allowing households to contribute to the wider functioning of the electricity system, whilst simultaneously reducing their own bills.
'Carbon dioxide emissions have also proved very difficult to reduce in the transport sector, so systems like this where solar is integrated with electric vehicles, point the way forward for clean green travel as well.'
