Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer, wants to convert every home into a distributed power plant that will generate, store and even reconnect power to the grid, all using the company's products.
Although the company has been selling solar energy and energy storage products for years;
The new policy stated by Musk - during his comments the day before yesterday, Monday - reveals a new strategy aimed at expanding the scope of this business by supporting the shipping terminals.
"The future is prosperous for both Tesla and charging stations," Musk said, during a call with investors, adding, "If charging stations are not developed, the company will fail to serve its customers. He pointed out that the blackout in California last summer and the network disruption recently in Texas is evidence of the The reliability of the network is becoming an even greater concern. "
The company changed the prices on its website last week, prohibiting customers from purchasing solar energy products, or Powerwall, to store energy only, and instead requested a complete system at a higher price.
Musk later announced this step in a tweet, stating that "the solar energy will exclusively feed" the Power Wall, "which in turn will only interact between the electricity meter and the main distribution panel in the home," and this will make users obliged to purchase a complete system for the home.
Musk says the public electricity grid will need more power lines, more power plants and larger substations to remove carbon completely using renewable energy sources, in addition to solving the storage problem
That is why he believes that the new system for distributed residential units - using Tesla products - will be the best solution to overcome the shortage of power lines.
And recent studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have supported Musk's views, which found that the United States could reach a carbon-free grid by doubling its ability to deliver energy through residential power systems.
Musk envisions a radically different power grid system from the one we have today, which is controlled and operated centrally by grid operators and independent organizations such as the Autonomous System Operator in California or the Electrical Reliability Board in Texas.
This vision is full of bureaucratic and logistical challenges.
Regulatory policy will need to resolve how to deal with the large influx of so-called "distributed energy resources," such as solar panels on residential roofs, which may conflict with what is in place in conventional power plants.
But the question remains, will renewable energy sources in addition to storage in residential units alone be sufficient to remove the carbon emitted from traditional energy networks?
Many experts believe that the use of abandoned lands and rooftops to generate and store energy will face the problem of disruption of renewable energy sources, which may limit their role as the main electricity generator in the country instead of the traditional plants that emit carbon.
But Musk has long been optimistic about the renewable energy generation model in addition to its storage capacity. Last July, he tweeted that "Physics prefers electrical transmission and batteries for stationary storage, and solar and wind power are preferred for generating energy."