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.
I was looking into this stuff early this year in India, and found LiFePO₄ more compelling on paper: two or three times the cost, but lasting two or three times as long, allowing deeper discharge so it should be equivalent to slightly higher capacity, and requiring no maintenance. I could easily have overlooked or misunderstood something, and am interested in counterarguments.
The lifespan numbers are lies. I have personal knowledge of deep cycle lead batteries lasting 10+ years, thousands of cycles. Many websites actually cite numbers for sealed batteries as used in cars. "Flooded" batteries last longer than sealed because they can be inspected and maintained. There are also "deep cycle" and "marine" units which are also different than car batteries and can be discharged more.
I’ve seen and heard of a lot of lead-acid battery home inverter and desktop UPS setups in India (extremely common due to grid unreliability). Desktop UPS batteries sound to consistently be completely useless (<10% capacity, typically 0%) in 3–5 years, and the larger home inverter batteries are typically in poor shape by around 5 years.
I haven’t known any Lithium-ion batteries yet, so I have no personal figures on them. But what I’ve heard is generally more like “they said 8–10 years but it’s still fine after 12”.
Offgrid garage tested it a couple of videos ago and basically the battery lost capacity due to age and not for cycling. And that battery was made with the first generation of lifepo4 from eve, recent battery are better. Realistically it will die first the BMS than the cells in a couple of decades
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.
chrismorgan · · focus · HN ↗
sandworm101 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://offgridsolarguide.com/lead-acid-battery-brands-for-off-grid/#Flooded_Lead-Acid_Batteries" rel="nofollow">https://offgridsolarguide.com/lead-acid-battery-brands-for-o...
chrismorgan · · focus · HN ↗
I haven’t known any Lithium-ion batteries yet, so I have no personal figures on them. But what I’ve heard is generally more like “they said 8–10 years but it’s still fine after 12”.
raizer88 · · focus · HN ↗