Seems like they supply each person with 2 Tesla powerwalls for the $55/month and get a reduction in their bills that depends on how much power they choose to share to the grid during power outages.
They've already closed down 2 peaker power plants because of this, so it doesn't seem to just be about handling power outages, but also handling fluctuating power usage instead of firing up extra power plants.
Lithium is not the way to go for home batteries. As size/weight are not an issue for a basement or shed install, oldschool lead-acid are much cheaper and can be easily recycled once at end of life.
Those tesla wall packs will be a massive headache when they give up the ghost. Read the contract carefully. Who is responsable for end-of-life disposal? Where/how are they to be disposed of? Lead acids can be taken to any number of recycling centers, some will even pay you for them.
We're in the program. As written, it's a 10 year lease, and there's no option to buy-out the equipment at the end. We'll see if they offer that as an option as the end of the lease approaches in another 7 years. For now though, GMP is on the hook to come and get the equipment.
I would also suggest that size and weight are bigger concerns than you're giving credit to. They aren't assembling packs on-site from individual batteries. They're rolling in whole-ass packs in one swell foop. Getting them into basements isn't a small job[0]. Getting them back out will be even less fun for the crews.
Their total on-site install time was maybe 6 hours, and that included tying everything in to the existing system. Putting the hardware in place took maybe an hour of that time. If you want to go with heavier packs or more/larger packs, you're going to add to that a bit. And their doing this in people's finished homes. This isn't new build where they can have a couple of big dudes wrangling packs around without a care in the world for furniture and finished surfaces. The ergonomics of smaller packs matter.
[0] They used a two-wheel dolly with a hydraulic disc brake (bicycle hardware) to get them down our basement stairs.
If the utility owns the packs, part of me wonders why not build out battery stations around substations the utility already owns, instead of managing many small batteries in individual houses.
Seems like the former would have some development costs but ultimately be cheaper to manage
Long term, with people moving towards charging their cars at home, storing excess solar energy at home might be the more economical option because it decreases the amount of power a substation has to send out at peak times.
I guess Vermont’s relatively low population density makes that more likely; with lower population density each service station will either service fewer homes or require more cabling towards those homes. Either way, more cabling is needed per house. Upgrading that to handle the load of charging a car can be costly.
hettygreen · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://electrek.co/2026/07/28/vermonts-largest-energy-source-is-now-a-virtual-power-plant/" rel="nofollow">https://electrek.co/2026/07/28/vermonts-largest-energy-sourc...
Seems like they supply each person with 2 Tesla powerwalls for the $55/month and get a reduction in their bills that depends on how much power they choose to share to the grid during power outages.
They've already closed down 2 peaker power plants because of this, so it doesn't seem to just be about handling power outages, but also handling fluctuating power usage instead of firing up extra power plants.
sandworm101 · · focus · HN ↗
Those tesla wall packs will be a massive headache when they give up the ghost. Read the contract carefully. Who is responsable for end-of-life disposal? Where/how are they to be disposed of? Lead acids can be taken to any number of recycling centers, some will even pay you for them.
mauvehaus · · focus · HN ↗
I would also suggest that size and weight are bigger concerns than you're giving credit to. They aren't assembling packs on-site from individual batteries. They're rolling in whole-ass packs in one swell foop. Getting them into basements isn't a small job[0]. Getting them back out will be even less fun for the crews.
Their total on-site install time was maybe 6 hours, and that included tying everything in to the existing system. Putting the hardware in place took maybe an hour of that time. If you want to go with heavier packs or more/larger packs, you're going to add to that a bit. And their doing this in people's finished homes. This isn't new build where they can have a couple of big dudes wrangling packs around without a care in the world for furniture and finished surfaces. The ergonomics of smaller packs matter.
[0] They used a two-wheel dolly with a hydraulic disc brake (bicycle hardware) to get them down our basement stairs.
dashundchen · · focus · HN ↗
Seems like the former would have some development costs but ultimately be cheaper to manage
Someone · · focus · HN ↗
I guess Vermont’s relatively low population density makes that more likely; with lower population density each service station will either service fewer homes or require more cabling towards those homes. Either way, more cabling is needed per house. Upgrading that to handle the load of charging a car can be costly.