Tesla-SolarCity could become an energy equivalent to an Uber or AirBnB, with a merger between the two creating “an integrated sustainable energy company, which does not own any centralised generation assets”, one expert has commented.
Julian Jansen, analyst and energy storage research manager at Delta Energy & Environment (Delta EE), spoke to Energy-Storage.News about an investor presentation issued by Tesla ahead of the merger talks, which go to a shareholder vote on 17 November.
Tesla, led by CEO and chief product architect Elon Musk, and SolarCity, headed up by Musk’s cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive – CEO and CTO respectively – are seeking to become an integrated provider of electric vehicles, rooftop solar, battery energy storage and now also BIPV solar roof tiles.
At last week’s launch event for the solar roof tiles, Musk also launched Powerwall 2, with an increased 14kWh of storage capacity and a new look. The unveiling of the updated home storage system which will retail at US$5,500, followed the lower key announcement via Tesla’s official blog of the new generation of Powerpack commercial, industrial and utility-scale batteries.
Delta EE’s Jansen said that the unification of Tesla and SolarCity follows the path of convergence seen between energy storage and solar over the past couple of years and the acquisition “is really part of the wider transformation of the energy system”. While it was somewhat novel for an energy storage manufacturer to move into solar through acquisition, there are plenty of examples of other big companies moving from solar PV, automobiles or energy into energy storage, such as Panasonic, Mercedes-Benz and Total.
Jansen said therefore that the new entity created by a potential merger would be in some ways analogous to taxi app Uber, which hires out drivers and their cars rather than owning its own fleet of cars.
“It’s not hard to imagine Tesla evolving into a company that provides new energy solutions for different customers groups, connecting customers and aggregating loads and distributed generation, as well as providing flexibility to the system,” Jansen said.
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