Tesla is planning to be an electricity provider in Germany and could trade electricity. Elon Musk seems to be opening a new wing for electric cars to win supremacy in this sector in the European market.
Also, they have recently acquired a license that will enable them to trade electricity across Western Europe, and the company has also been getting feedback from customers pertaining to the usage of Tesla electricity in their cars
According to experts in the sectors, it could set the stage for the company with one or more partners. This will enable growth in Germany which is Europe’s biggest power market and autos’ heartland. Generation and trading of power could help the company to reduce the running costs of its cars and help to be the stiff competitor of BMW, Audi, Porsche, and Mercedes which are churning out new electric models.
This will also help in utilizing Vattenfall and EnBW which are venturing out and investing in electric mobility services. But there are other companies like RWE and E.ON which have lumbered the cost of bringing down fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.
Tesla has ventured into the solar panels and the Powerwall battery storage system for homes and in June, they have entered into a partnership with Paris-based EPEX Spot power exchange. It is a platform used to trade much of western Europe’s intraday cross-border electricity. This means that they are taking the service providing to the homes directly, a bit too seriously.
They have made market surveys of such usage and service provided by Tesla to the potential customers will enable charging with cheap electricity rates during off-peak hours. Tesla could also use the power stored by customers to help balance the electricity grid, which will be beneficial in Germany as they have become recently dependant on the volatile wind and solar power.
Shell-owned Sonnen, virtual power plant operator Next Kraftwerke, and power aggregator Lichtblick are some of the companies offering a similar type of service.
Tesla chose the Brandenburg state around Berlin for its new factory. According to reports, 65% of the electricity on the Brandenburg grid was generated from renewable sources, mostly wind. But it was limited in usage as Germany’s networks are limited in how much green power they can transport over long distances.
Gigafactory 4 of Tesla will need 100 megawatts (MW) of power and up to 400 MW in accordance with the 50Hz operator. A former member of Tesla management said that “Tesla’s long-term plan definitely includes tackling the energy industry in a bigger way, though it’s questionable whether it invests enough at the moment in that area.”
Thus with its recent ventures in the U.K and Australia and this decentralization of power in the solar power market in Germany will also enable Tesla to enter slowly, possibly with the help of a competent partner, into the industry of energy.
