Tesla has launched “Tesla Electric” to become an electricity retailer through its Powerwall owners – starting with some markets in Texas.
After gaining experience through its virtual power plants (VPPs), Tesla is taking things a step further with the launch of “Tesla Electric.”
Instead of reacting to specific “events” and providing services to your local electric utilities, like Tesla Powerwall owners have done in VPPs in California, Tesla Electric is actively and automatically buying and selling electricity for Tesla Powerwall owners – providing a buffer against peak prices.
It’s a special electric plan for Powerwall owners.
“Solar and Powerwall can help you and your community accelerates the transition to sustainable energy. With Tesla Electric, your Powerwall automatically decides when to charge and when to sell electricity to the grid. Together with other Tesla Electric members, you can maximize the value of your solar energy while using your Powerwall storage to add more renewable electricity to the grid. You can also achieve your own sustainability goals when importing electricity from the grid, as Tesla Electric offsets your usage with energy from 100 percent renewable sources,” Tesla wrote on its website.
The company notes that Tesla Electric’s retail plan is currently only available by invitation to select customers in Texas.
Tesla has been working on this new product for a while now, and it is a big step toward the company’s goal to become a “global distributed clean electric utility,” and it is starting in Texas, a place that badly needs an electric utility revolution.
In May, there was a report in the media that Tesla was lobbying for any homeowner with solar and batteries to participate in Texas’s energy market.
The company was asking for a rule change with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), an organization operating Texas’s electrical grid, that would enable electric utilities with customers with behind-the-meter solar and batteries, meaning people with residential solar, to bid on the extra capacity.
Earlier this week, we reported that Tesla received approval from ERCOT for “a statewide market design pilot for small distributed energy resources to provide grid service exports.”