Tesla Powerwall 3
New Tesla Powerwall 3 is Now Available!
The compact 13.5kWh capacity Powerwall 3 is the new solar battery from Tesla that stores electrical energy produced by solar to power your home. The powerful battery has a significantly improved power output of 10kW compared to 5kW in Powerwall 2.
Powerwall now has a built-in inverter. You can connect up to 20kW of solar panels directly to the battery without the need for for a purchasing a separate inverter.
Tesla Powerwall 3 offers protection from grid outages, powering your home in backup mode during a blackout.
Tesla has announced that capacity will be expandable by adding extra 13.5kWh storage units. These soon to be available expansion packs are controlled from the Powerwall.
Over the life of the battery software updates will be available from Tesla to deliver improved functionality and features keeping the battery up to date.
Powerwall 3 Key Features
Integrated Inverter
More Savings and Value
Emergency Backup Power
Durable Design
Powerful
Comprehensive Warranty
| Total/usable capacity | 13.5kWh/10kWh depending on local conditions |
|---|---|
| Efficiency solar to home | 97.5% grid efficiency |
| Efficiency solar to battery to home | 89% |
| Customer interface | Via Tesla App |
| Installation location | Indoor / outdoor |
| Mounting method | Floor or wall |
| Operating temperature | -20 to 5℃ |
| Degree of protection | IP65 |
| Cooling method | Natural convection |
| Dimensions/weight | 1105 x 609 x 193mm/130kg |
| Warranty | 10-years |
Powerwall 3 App
Monitor and Control Your Energy
Customers can monitor and manage the Powerwall 3 in real time by using the Tesla app. This comprehensive app allows the tracking of the power produced by the solar system, battery storage levels, and also what power is being consumed by the house.
Operating Modes: Different operational modes for the battery can be selected in order to optimise energy usage and maximise savings. These include include prioritising self consumption or backup power.
Storm Warning: If storms or severe is forecast the battery can automatically ensure backup protection by charging to full power.
Energy Rate Plans: You add your electricity rate plan into the app so it can calculate the cost of energy consumption to be able to set up time based controls.
Time Based Controls: This smart feature allows you to change settings to suit your requirements, so you buy power when the price is low and move to self consumption when higher tariffs kick in with time of day metering. This allows you to maximise your savings.
Energy Security
Emergency Power for Your Home
With weather events becoming more unpredictable and challenges to grid supply stability more frequent, a secure energy supply is a worry for many homeowners.
Powerwall 3 eliminates these worries with whole of home backup protection.
In the event of a grid power supply outage the Powerwall is able to provide emergency backup power for the home with up to 10kW of continuous power. However delivering this much power to home would drain the battery quickly.
SolarBright recommends configuring the backup to run essential appliances only such as fridges, freezers and some power points to charge phones and power other essential items.
In order to handle home backup back the the Powerwall requires the installation of the Tesla Backup Gateway. This automatically detects a grid outage and switches to backup mode with little interruption.
Book a Free Powerwall Consultation.
Book a free in-home consultation with one of expert energy consultants. We can assess your energy usage and design a Tesla Powerwall 3 battery and solar system to perfectly suit your energy needs.
Battery Expansion
Adding Capacity to Tesla Powerwall 3
Tesla has released details regarding expanding the storage capacity of the Powerwall 3.
This will be done though the use of 13.5kWh capacity expansion packs. These expansion packs are DC coupled and will be controlled by the in-built inverter in the battery.
The expansion packs are basically a dummy Powerwall 3 with no inverter electronics.
Each Powerwall 3 will be able to control 3 x 13.5kWh expansion packs to give a total system capacity of 54kWh. Future functionality in 2025 will support up to 216kWh – 4 x Powerwall 3’s each with 3 x 13.5kWh expansion packs.
The expansion packs are not available yet and should be released in Australia shortly.
Powerwall 3
Built-in Inverter
The integrated inverted is the possibly the biggest change compared to the Powerwall 2.
This means when you buy the Powerwall 3 all you have to do buy the panels. With a Powerwall 2 you had buy an external inverter for the panels, which adds a couple of thousand thousand dollars to the system cost.
The inverter in the Powerwall can control up to a 20kW solar system. It also handles charging and discharging the battery.
The inverter supports 3 MPPT’s which means it can control 3 different strings of solar panels. Each string can face in a different direction, which is important on smaller or more difficult shaped roofs to increase the number of panels installed.
The inverter is efficiency is good. Solar to home is efficiency is 97.5%. The round trip efficiency from solar to battery, then from the battery to the home or grid is 89% which is similar to most decent battery solutions available.
