Mega Energy Growth
Tesla has been making waves with its energy storage business this past year, and the April 19th announcement of the company’s Q1 2023 financial results puts a number to that effort - a result of over 360% new deployments over last year.
The company has been investing in their Megapack product ever since demand for the large energy storage system began skyrocketing last year.
Major projects to install rows and rows of the battery-filled, 3 Megawatt hour cabinets have popped up around the world over the course of 2022 - largely due to environmental disasters and ageing power infrastructure showing that most countries are in dire need of emergency support for their electrical grids.
Tesla has so many orders for the Megapack, that new purchases are being backlogged into 2024 - and the company has recently announced a second Megapack facility will be built in Shanghai.
This plus the company’s current Megafactory in Lathrop, California should produce about 80 gigawatt hours of energy storage per year - once they’re both up and running. Lathrop is already ramping up production, but Shanghai won’t be online until about Q2 2024.
But this increase in deployments isn’t just represented by the Megapack. Tesla’s Powerwall - its power-storage system for private homeowners - also added to the 360% jump in deployments. This is probably due to the success of Tesla’s Virtual Power Plant programs, which allowed Powerwall users to share energy between themselves - and even sell excess energy back to the grid in emergencies.
Tesla’s Solar business even saw an uptick - about 40% more than last year, even though sales get slower during the winter months.
All in all, that's a pretty big win for Tesla. Such a massive spike in deployments means they’re on the right track with their investments in new facilities. Power storage is going to be a very good source of cash for the company over the next couple of years.