Elon Musk of Tesla made a big announcement Thursday, finally putting some more explanation to the recent rumors of a home battery. Dubbed Powerwall, it is essentially a gigantic battery, used for harnessing power. Similar to the battery found in your smartphone, the power supply of your home, even when not connected to a grid, is supplying energy. But sadly, all that extra energy is wasted because utility companies do not provide any other option. Tesla Energy, as well as the state of California, wants to change this power wasting by providing an option for storing. This would more than aid in our clean-energy future, but save individuals money, and stock us up for power outages.

Tesla Energy's Powerwall is available in two configurations- a 7kWh ($3,000) sufficient for daily use, and a 10kWh ($3,500), good for providing backup power if the grid were to go down. It's made up of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, liquid thermal control system, as well as dispatch command software. We will first see Powerwall in Fremont, California, and Reno, Nevada soon after. According to Tesla, three benefits are to be expected. The first is load shifting, or the saving of energy during low rate/low demand periods. The second is solar energy storing during times when there's a surplus, or the sun isn't shining. Finally, as mentioned, Powerwall will be able to provide backed-up power in the event of an outage.

Powerwall will be a solution for a lot of consumers. There's the folks who rely on solar panels to power their homes, who will now benefit from the storing of solar energy. Other consumers, most of them actually, will definitely enjoy saving money each month by not wasting as much. Not only that, but they will have the ability to save up by charging their Powerwalls up when prices are low (Washington Post). Tesla's new technology will liberate people from having to bow down to the almighty electrical grid, giving them the independence of sourcing their own power using the Powerwall battery. This could generate (pun intended) a huge wave of change for the better, something that we have been craving since the realization of Climate Change.