A building company in Dubbo says the Tesla Powerwall 2 battery in its new display home means the Dubbo solar home could potentially go off-grid.
Award-winning Greenmark Homes installed a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery to boost the display home’s energy efficiency.
Greenmark builder John O’Neil won the Master Builders Association (MBA) regional award for energy efficiency and environmental management.
The MBA member will now use solar batteries to build more energy efficient homes in Dubbo.
Dubbo solar: Sustainable, quality housing for niche market
According to MBA President Stuart Crowfoot, Greenmark Homes beat off other contenders featuring more expensive homes.
O’Neil’s Dubbo solar home won out over a $3 million project, which shows how good Dubbo builders are, Crowfoot added.
Dubbo builder Matt Lack also won an award for best additions and renovations up to $200,000.
Lack praised his small team’s focus on a niche market. Delivery of high-quality work marks the team out as special, he says.
Tesla big battery wins awards, prevents blackouts
Tesla Powerpack, its scaled-up, commercial version of the Powerwall 2, has also earned national awards.
In May this year the big battery at South Australia’s Hornsdale Wind Farm took out two categories at the 60th Annual Good Design Awards.
It won the Good Design Award for Sustainability, one of the premier categories. It also emerged as Gold Winner in Engineering Design for outstanding design and innovation.
The Hornsdale battery is the largest lithium-ion battery in the world. It was built by Tesla founder Elon Musk following South Australia’s catastrophic outages in 2016.
Home batteries help owners move off-grid
Tesla still dominates the home battery storage market in Australia and around the world.
Car giant Mercedes-Benz announced earlier this year it would no longer make residential batteries, saying it proved harder than anticipated to move from car batteries into home storage.
However, German manufacturer sonnen is also gaining popularity as part of residential solar installations.
Owners of a sonnen battery can also link up with other users via the sonnenFlat scheme. This allows owners to generate, share and trade energy with the sonnenFlat network.
This scheme delivers an annual electricity amount from just $30 flat fee per month with no power bills. Users can also sell excess electricity back to the grid.
