Tesla Powerwall Gets Approval To Power New Virtual Power Plant

Tesla installation partner for Powerwall, Swell Energy has received approval in Queens, New York to power a new virtual Power plant in the city.

Swell Energy already has several virtual power plant (VPP) projects with Tesla Powerwalls ongoing and it was funded by Suleman Khan, an early member of Tesla’s energy team who launched the Powerwall before starting his own energy company.

Swell announced that the new virtual power plant powered by Tesla Powerwell in Queen in partnership with Con Edison aims to deliver solar-powered home batteries to eligible customers creating an aggregated network of distributed energy resources.

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“Energy and smart grid solutions provider Swell Energy (Swell) today announced the start of a residential solar plus storage program for homeowners in Queens, New York. The program will be deployed in partnership with Con Edison, the energy company that serves New York City, and aims to deliver solar-powered home batteries to eligible customers creating an aggregated network of distributed energy resources.”

Swell uses Powerwall in order for them to subsidise the installations of the home battery packs in exchange to access some of the power when needed approaching electric utilities with its behind-the-meter energy storage project.

It’s a win-win situation where customers get cheaper home energy storage and the electric utility gets cheap energy storage to help manage its grid. These projects are often referred to as “virtual power plants” since combining all those battery packs together can act as a power plant.

The project is expected to serve 300 homes and it will provide 500 kW of power capacity to Con Edison, but it could be enough for them to avoid spending a lot of money to upgrade the local grid.

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The company confirmed that the people in Queens, Glendale, Hunters Points and the following neighborhoods can apply:

“Homeowners in the Queens neighborhoods of Forest Park, Glendale, Hunters Point, Long Island City, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, Sunnyside, and parts of Elmhurst, Forest Hills, Rego Park, and Woodside who have, or are interested in getting a home battery system paired with or without solar panels.”