Home battery systems have picked up great popularity from the moment Tesla announced the construction of their Gigafactory and the development of their Powerwall. Of course, no one believed that Tesla will be left to monopolize the market, and it really did not take long for another high-end automaker, Mercedes Benz, to release a competitive concept. And of course, the German giant is not the only one taking part in this gold-winning race.
An announcement that came earlier this month by Panasonic’s Managing Director for Australia, states that the company is ready to release their “Residential Storage Battery System” to Europe, hitting the German, British and French markets first.
The exact dates have not yet been disclosed, but we know that the home energy storage unit model LJ-SK84A will be manufactured in Japan by Panasonic. It will comprise of lithium-ion batteries with capacity of 8kWh and output of 2kW. When fully charged, the unit will be able to provide charge for about 4 hours. It weighs just under 160kg, it is 1380mm high, 966mm wide, and 279mm deep.
The “Residential Storage Battery System” is specifically designed for peak hours of solar power generation, and it is thought to optimize home energy production and storage. Besides energy storage, it has a set of extra features, which allow owners to adjust the operational specifications as they find fit and according to their needs.
Just over a year ago, Panasonic and Tesla signed an agreement, that Panasonic will occupy half of Tesla’s new gigafactory, where lithium-ion cells will be assembled. The deal is thought to reduce the price of Powerwall energy storage units, and it should lead to releasing a cheaper Tesla Model 3 to the public.
The only problem for Tesla, however, is that the huge number of pre-orders in the U.S. make the EU shipping date very hard to predict. It seems Panasonic knew that and they were very fast to secure their sales on the pretty large European market. And it gets worse for Tesla, because they already lost their potential customers in Australia to Panasonic, where the tech giant is already installing pilot units together with local energy partners.
But is there some sort of a deal between Tesla and Panasonic? We cannot be sure for now. All we know is that Panasonic is a lot faster in making their “Residential Storage Battery System”, which means that Tesla might well have lost its potential EU customers, who are following the Australians.
Image (c) Panasonic
