Four years ago, Nick Pfitzner became the first person in Australia (and one of the first worldwide) to get a Tesla Powerwall battery storage solution.
The Pfitzner family lives in a five-bedroom house and has quite ordinary household appliances: washing machines, air conditioners, a dishwasher, a couple of TVs and a pool. Their power bill was around an average of $572.29 each quarter.
Nick was already a fan of the Tesla electric car, so when he heard the company would be offering a ‘Tesla Powerwall’ home battery storage solution, he was keen to find out more. He got in touch with Australia’s largest and leading installer of solar panels and solar batteries Natural Solar.
Well, after only a year, they saw a 92% drop in their power bills. These days, their power bills average $45.16 per quarter. That’s over $2,000 less per year than before they installed their solar battery solution.
In fact, over the past four years, they’ve only paid $677.34 in TOTAL for electricity (around 46c per day). That’s around $100 more over those four years than they used to spend in a single quarter before they installed the Tesla Powerwall.
Let’s break down the numbers to figure out Nick’s ROI. Nick originally paid $15,990 for his solar panels, inverter and solar battery system.
Before the Tesla Power Wall, they’d have paid around $9,156.64 for over the past four years (that’s $572.29 per quarter x 16). And we know that the family has only paid $677.34 for the same period to power their house. So they’ve saved around $8,479.40 over those four years.
And that, in turn, means they’ll have almost completely paid off the entire cost of the system in just seven years.
According to the Natural Solar customers who install a solar and battery solution see up to 90% reduction in their power bills. And many other customers also have an ROI period of seven years, just like Nick and his family.
"To see the numbers stack up after four years proves the technology is truly here to stay, and will likely only continue to grow with a huge demand worldwide," said Chris Williams, CEO & Founder of Natural Solar.
"When you crunch the numbers, it’s astonishing to see the real time, real life savings. For the full four years, the Pfitzner household has only paid $677.34 to power their entire home – their quarterly electricity bills used to be just $105 less than this. When the price of power is increasing by an average of 10%-15% per annum, these unprecedented savings really speak to the benefits of battery power," Williams continued.
A Tesla Powerwall is a solar battery that hooks up to the rooftop solar system. It then stores any excess power a solar panels generate, so you can use it later, like at night or on cloudy days. In most cases, you have enough storage to last all night, so you don’t have to buy as much power from the main grid.
It’s also versatile enough that you can either add it to your existing solar system or install it as part of a new solar system and battery combination.
All photos are provided by Natural Solar
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
