Is a Tesla Powerwall 2 Worth it? (1 year review)

11 days without power after hurricane irma was the tipping point for me... built a new house with sips, solar pv and powerwall and yeah... first time the neighborhood lost power and i didn’t notice until i looked outside? priceless.

You don't need solar if you could hook a generator up to this guys hands while he's talking.

very interesting. I'm excited to get my power wall installed

seeing your numbers you need a few more solar panels, at least enough to match the energy you're using

In India we have installed a 5 kw solar system with 10 12 volts 200 ah battery which gives us 24 kWh of backup... and the total system costs us about 480000 Rs which is about 6550 usd.

the real answer is if this was the NORMAL set up that everyone was accustom to.... no one in their right mind would change it to what is "normal" now. and that's how you know, it's a good idea. costs associated with the change however, not everyone's cup of tea due to their individual financial or living situations.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer the questions we’ve all had but never answered on our own. :-)

A really interesting breakdown, thanks for that. I live in the south of Spain, off grid with 4.3kw solar and 6kw battery and we have more than enough to power everything we need. We do have a diesel generator for those rare bad weather weeks, but I haven't used it for about 6 months now.

This is the absolute best breakdown I've seen about this system. Thank you for taking the time to create a dataset crunch the numbers for us.

great content!!! love to see real world reviews of those systems.. keep it up and keep us updated 👍🏽

The other advantage of the battery pack over the generator is a very low sound pressure which you cannot hear while the air cooled generator sound level is roughly 70 dB(A), water cooled 10 less (but is much more expensive). This makes a lot of difference especially during the night. Thank you for a very good video.

Quick shout out... best Tesla coverage certainly comes from your channel. Thanks for always being so detailed while keeping it simple. 👍🏽

I have a 5.94 kWh system with 1 Powerwall. It’s been cool to see sunlight turn into energy to then power my house. I think part of the economics of it all that might be hard to factor in is the energy independency of the solar + Powerwall. I’ve had my system for about a month now and love it.

For me, having 3 PWs, combined with solar, to run the house and home offices is more about continuity. Being without power disrupts the working from home so much and that alone is enough justification in a hurricane-prone area like mine, in Puerto Rico.

When comparing value between cost over time (using grid power) vs savings from an investment (powerwall), I think you should include a discount rate in order to accurately compare the total savings. A discount rate is required because you can opt to not buy a powerwall and invest the amount to offset continual reliance on grid power.

very interesting and good insight. The best part and something to also consider is that even though its only got a 10 year warranty or lifespan, the power wall and even solar panels will generally last much longer albeit maybe at a reduced capacity but still be able to continue to function. That would help with justifying and getting better overall numbers.

I think that you're not factoring in a huge part of the costs, Ben, which is interest. The total cost of your system is 27k including installs. The vast majority of people don't have that amount laying around(and if they do, they can invest it, so you'd have to take the opportunity cost of not investing in mind) and will take out a loan. Even given today's extremely low interest rates, if you install this on a house you're buying and roll this into the mortgage, you're looking at ~55% extra in total interest paid, for a 25 year mortgage, so the total cost in that case is 42K and it's not like you've added any value to the house with a mega-obsolete system by that point. If you've already got a house and take out a HELOC to finance it, the interest rates will be higher still. Also, given the fact that the warranty is only ten years, I don't think that you can treat the additional cost over a 25 year period as 0. Ditto for the Powerwall batteries. So it looks like right now, the system doesn't make financial sense even in Sunny San Diego, but I hope the equation will improve reasonably quickly 🤞 P.S. another factor why I'm not getting a power-wall yet, which I'd considered, just as a big UPS, is max power draw. A Powerwall has a peak output of 5.8KW according to the specs(it was ~3.5KW from what I remember, for the previous generation when I checked it out), I know you have 2, but that's pricy, see above. My kettle uses 3KW(standard for European kettles and I've wired up a European plug with 240V in my kitchen, just to use a European kettle, since I'm a tea-guzzling transplant and slow American kettles annoy me, but even an American kettle takes 1.5KW) and my microwave uses 1.2KW and the oven uses up to 3.5KW. I've got gas heating, but for people who use electric, even a small space heater will use 1.5KW. So basically, running off of a Powerwall would preclude me from doing a ton of things for the duration, or at least perform an annoying power-balancing act. Have you run into power-draw limits during the blackouts?

I really like that you have Tesla Powerwalls with solar. If you increase the efficiency of your home, e.g. get a tankless electric water heater, replace your AC with a more efficient 17+ SEER system or add more solar panels, you should be able to essentially supply 100%+ of your own energy! Plus, your electric cars are powered by solar energy when you charge at home. Super cool, keep it up!!

Much of the economics depends on the cost of electricity generally, plus the difference between peak and off-peak pricing. The value of keeping the home humming during an outage is priceless.

I'm going on 2 1/2 years with my PowerWall 2 and I absolutely LOVE IT. So much so I wish I had bought 2 and am thinking of adding a second!