A few months ago Elon Musk announced that he was in the final stages of an exciting new product. He also promised that it wasn’t going to be a car. Turns out that Musk delivered, and his short presentation on the eve of 30 April was the most electric 20 minutes of the century.

It was also entirely powered by solar energy.

Elon Musk’s new electric battery system is a game changer, and if by now you have not heard of this South African-born entrepreneur you must be living in the woods…

Musk is famously known for co-founding Tesla Motors, which brought us the electric sports car and private space vehicles. He’s also the man behind X.com, which later became PayPal, as well as SpaceX, which launched a commercial spacecraft in May of 2012.

Tesla’s Musk now claims that this breakthrough in energy storage technology will lead to a “fundamental transformation about how the world works”. His ambitions are enormous, and it’s hard to argue with a man who insists that “existing batteries suck”…because they do.

The Powerwall

The Powerwall Home Battery is first Tesla Energy product unveiled to the public. With this revolutionary battery system Tesla is repositioning itself as one of the world’s leaders in “off the grid” power supply.

Made of rechargeable lithium-ion, the Powerwall looks like a sleeker version of the gas combi boiler. It has a 10 year guaranteed lifespan and essentially comes as 2 separate products.

The home battery system is a 10kWh setup which clocks in at $3500, or a 7kWh model for $3000, excluding the cost of installation and the inverter of course.

Its larger counterpart, the Powerpack, is described by Musk as an “infinitely scalable system” with industrial and utility applications. The Powerpack comes in 100 kWh battery blocks which scale anywhere from 500 kWh all the way up to 10 MWh.

Shipping of the Powerwall system will begin in July – August of 2015 from their Gigafactory, still under construction in Nevada, which Musk describes as a product.

The Powerwall is the first of its kind and makes the latest unveiling by Elon Musk the most hyped. This is arguable due to the fact Tesla now offers achievable sustainability like never before!

Are we really on the brink of moving from a largely nuclear, hydro, and all the rest, exclusively to renewable solar energy?

Should Musk achieve his ambitions, it certainly seems that way.

Tesla is finally set to have a massive impact on the energy monopoly, and perhaps even the jolt solar power needs to lead us through the next millennium.