Free Republic

Never lacking daring ideas, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is determined to jolt the electricity market. The CEO of electric car maker Tesla Motors hopes to park hundreds of millions of large, solar panel-connected batteries in homes and businesses so the world can disconnect from power plants—and he can profit. On Thursday night, before an adoring crowd and a party-like atmosphere, Musk unveiled how he intends to do it. Musk took the stage at Tesla's design studio near Los Angeles International Airport, an audience of drink-toting enthusiasts cheering him on, in a scene fitting for an audacious dreamer renowned for pursuing...

Chief executive Elon Musk announced the firm would build batteries that store solar energy and serve as a back-up system for consumers during blackouts. The device would allow consumers to get off a power grid or bring energy to remote areas that are not on a grid. Tesla plans to start shipping the units to installers in the US by this summer. In a highly anticipated event near Los Angeles, Mr Musk said the move could help change the "entire energy infrastructure of the world". "Tesla Energy is a critical step in this mission to enable zero emission power generation,"...

Tesla’s announcement last week about creating a new line of batteries for use by businesses, consumers, and the electrical grid at large is a game-changer for the industry. Currently, when individuals or companies need back-up power, they usually rely on generators. Effective battery storage for large amounts of energy would be a game changer in that it would enable a separation of generation and use of energy produced through clean fuels like solar and wind power. The big problem with solar and wind right now is that the energy is only useful when it is actually produced and, because a...

Tesla shares (TSLA) are getting a charge from a Bloomberg report that the company will unveil a home battery and a large-scale utility battery, at an event at its Hawthorne design studio next week. Bloomberg got a hold of an email from Tesla’s investor-relations chief saying the company will explain the benefits of Tesla’s solutions compared to battery options in the past. There has been speculation that Tesla will look to challenge the traditional utility power grid with home and utility batteries, and a research note from Deutsche Bank says Tesla could be at the forefront of an energy storage...