US headquartered automobile and solar energy company Tesla has introduced its own solar inverter for the US market, the company informed clients through email, according to media reports. This product now, as the company reportedly said, completes the Tesla home solar system. Currently the US solar residential rooftop market is dominated mainly by SolarEdge and Enphase in the solar inverter space.
The Tesla Solar Inverter is targeted for residential use and is compatible with the company's own Solar Roof and traditional solar panels. Interestingly, it is already commercially available, without any major launch announcement or even an official press release from the company.
On its website, Tesla shares that the new inverter product is available in 3.8 kW and 7.6 kW models with a weight of 52 lbs. It is sized 660mm x 411mm x 158 mm with a warranty of 12.5 years. The Tesla Solar Inverter is designed to integrate with Tesla Powerwall and Tesla app.
The company claims 97.5% efficiency for its latest offering that's built on Powerwall 2 technology with 'robust safety features' and a 'simple installation process'. "Once installed, homeowners use the Tesla app to manage their solar system and monitor energy consumption, resulting in a truly unique ecosystem experience," said Tesla.
Tesla entered the solar space formally after the acquisition of Solarcity in 2016 which is when it introduced its Solar Roof product. While its key business are cars, and battery storage has been a decent focus, its solar products were hardly seen in the market in the past few years. However, an inverter completes their sustainable solar offering, now including panels, inverters and batteries.
Since Tesla did not explain what or how, online solar and storage marketplace Energysage delved deep into the possible strategic reasons for the EV & battery company to get into the solar inverter space. It believes Tesla is trying to tackle hardware costs by making the inverter itself, since the costs of solar panels and inverters has already dropped over the past decade. At the same time, it will be able control the supply chain from distribution, warehousing, tracking the inventory as well as standardizing the installation process for their crews.