Australians to harness the sun with Tesla Powerwall this year

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We always knew that Australia's plentiful sun and abundance of houses with solar panels already installed would make it a perfect launch market for the Tesla Powerwall, and now we know Tesla feels the same way.

Today, the electric vehicle maker took a break from rolling out its latest Model X electric cars to announce that Tesla Power will be launching in Australia, (plus Germany, Switzerland and Austria), before the end of the year.

That means that Australian homeowners will be able to purchase the wall-mounted Tesla battery solution for Christmas, although there's no indication of local pricing just yet.

Both the 7kWh and the 10kWh solutions will be available down under, although the former will be much more targeted at residential users, with the more powerful solution recommended for rural homes.

Commercial customers looking to grab the 100kWh Powerpack will also get their chance to go off the grid with Tesla.

That's the power of sun

Tesla justified its decision to prioritise the Australian market thanks to the already high-price of electricity and the abundance of solar panels already in place.

In a statement, the company said that "Powerwall will enable solar customers to store solar energy they produce during peak sunlight hours with a newly announced power of 3.3kW, continuous and peak. They can then use this energy in the night time hours, rather than purchasing electricity at the retail price and selling their solar back to the grid for the feed-in-tariff rate."

Telsa is working with local energy partners, from solar supply companies to major electricity companies, with more details of the launch of the product expected to arrive in the coming weeks.