Yeti101 Posted January 10, 2016 By Willow Aliento, The Fifth Estate The renewable energy storage game is about to be disrupted, with Australian Aboriginal-owned company AllGrid Energy announcing the launch of WattGrid, a new 10kWh solar energy storage system it says is around 30 per cent cheaper than the Tesla Powerwall. Customers also don’t have to wait until 2016. Spokeswoman for AllGrid, Deborah Oberon, said the company expected to be making its first deliveries in the next two to three months. The $11,999 WattGrid unit comprises an aluminium cabinet containing tubular lead acid gel batteries, and a hybrid 5kW solar inverter with battery management system that has load share capability with the grid and uninterrupted power supply capability. They're also investing in some cool r&d apparently: Innovations currently in the pipeline include WattGrid12, a 12kW system battery storage system using saltwater batteries that will have up to 100 per cent longer life than lead acid batteries, and BioGrid, a biomass digester that uses food and household waste to generate a replacement for LPG gas and also produces compost More here: http://www.eco-business.com/news/aboriginal-owned-energy-company-one-upping-tesla/ 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theuserformallyknownasd00d Posted January 11, 2016 This sounds awesome! I made sure to buy a house with solar panels for when the power storage systems came down in price. That's a very realistic price for most house holds looking to do this sorta thing (at least I assume you'd be as happy with the price as me lol) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pinegapcontrol Posted January 12, 2016 especially like the bit about "biogrid", that's been on my mind for some time now Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sallubrious Posted January 13, 2016 With the value of our dollar they should be able to compete on an international level with their system. It's good to see this sort of innovation from an indigenous group. If they are doing it under a government grant, I'd say it's money well spent. There was a group of Aboriginal Uni students doing a tour of the CSIRO solar plant in Newcastle last week. It seems like they have their finger on the pulse. Maybe we'll see an Aboriginal owned solar plant some time in the near future. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
11010490 Posted January 22, 2016 Doesn't tesla use lithium batteries? 100x the charge cycles of lead acid and don't need to sit at float voltage to keep them happy. So that might explain the difference in price. In saying that, I still use lead acid for my primary bank but that's because I get the sla batteries for free. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites