This article by Bob Audette was published by the Brattleboro Reformer on Friday, May 18.
[B]RATTLEBORO — When a windstorm or blizzard buzzes through the region, one of the most prevalent sounds in the hours and days after is that of generators firing up, supplying power to homes where power lines have been damaged.
But, if Green Mountain Power has its druthers, that sound might be a thing of the past. For a limited time, GMP is offering free installation of Tesla PowerWall 2.0 batteries for either a one-time $1,500 payment or a 10-year, $15-a-month rate.
“We’ve already installed about 250 batteries,” said Kristin Kelly, GMP’s director of communications. Kelly described the pilot program as an integral part of GMP’s “culture of innovation.”
“GMP is always on the lookout for these opportunities and how they might benefit our customers,” she said.
Currently, the program is strictly residential, said Kelly, with a goal of installing 2,000 batteries.
The Tesla PowerWall provides eight to 12 hours of whole-house backup power and can be charged via the grid or by an on-site solar array.
“Not only does the PowerWall improve reliability for customers, it can also reduce costs for everyone on peak energy days,” said Kelly.
According to GMP’s website, the PowerWall stores energy from the grid when people are away from the home and energy demand is low, which can be drawn during times of peak energy, thus stabilizing cost fluctuations.
“The technology will empower customers to become more energy independent while also allowing GMP to reduce peak demand on the system, providing cost savings to all of its customers,” states the website.
While the $1,500 deal covers installation costs, notes the website, there may be additional costs that include work necessary to make a home ready for PowerWall, to relocate hard-to-access loads, or to improve the aesthetics of the installation. Sales tax is not included in the payments.
In Windham County, Luke Tarbi and his wife, Summer Jackson, recently installed a PowerWall at their home in the Deerfield Valley.
“We did it for two reasons,” said Tarbi. “No. 1, it’s a great deal at $15 a month for a $10,000 battery. And No. 2, I work in the energy industry and I really believe in what Green Mountain Power is trying to do in Vermont.”
Tarbi is the vice president of marketing for EnergySage, located in Cambridge, Mass.
“One of the downsides of living in a heavily wooded area like the Green Mountain National Forest is that we’re susceptible to the occasional power outage due to storms and downed wires,” wrote Tarbi in a blogpost at news.energysage.com. “This is particularly a risk in Vermont’s long winter months, when the tree limbs are heavy with snow and ice, and a strong wind can bring them down atop power lines.”
In addition to having eight hours of backup power, wrote Tarbi, he and his wife wanted to support GMP’s efforts to rely on distributed energy storage, instead of natural gas “peaker plants,” to meet spikes in electricity demand. “We were determined to support the pilot program, which the New York Times described as ‘a bold experiment aimed at turning homes, neighborhoods and towns into virtual power plants, able to reduce the amount of energy they draw from the central electric system.'”
After communicating with GMP their desire to install a PowerWall at their home, Tesla Energy took over, wrote Tarbi.
“The three-person team from Tesla Energy arrived at 10 a.m. on a Friday in mid-February,” he wrote. “All three were former SolarCity employees, and had experience with solar panels as well as battery storage. They were all friendly, professional, and wore matching black hoodies with Tesla emblazoned on the front.”
The installation process took about six hours in total, with about four hours of no power at the home, wrote Tarbi.
“The Powerwall can’t back up devices over 50 amp. As a result, we had to move our electric stove and hot tub to a new electric panel on the exterior of the house. The panel is between the electric meter and the battery so that the Tesla Powerwall can supply backup power to all of our critical appliances on the interior panel (electric baseboard heating, lighting, refrigerator, etc.) but will not attempt to power our stove or hot tub in a power outage.”
For more information on having a PowerWall installed in your home, visit https://greenmountainpower.com/product/powerwall.
