Tesla’s unveiling of its new Powerwall 2 battery with a built-in AC inverter — along with some upcoming solar roof tile products — takes a leaf from the Apple playbook of vertical integration. It’s the latest step on a corporate path, including the imminent merger with SolarCity, that moves Tesla closer to being a vertically integrated provider of energy solutions.

As with the Apple product ecosystem, this aims to establish Tesla as a single entry point for energy generation and storage systems in the home environment. Tesla has both the name and the resources to become a strong player in this realm.

AU Editor’s Note: Simon Hackett is the executive chairman of Redflow, an Australian battery energy storage company that builds battery systems for residential, commercial and industrial use. Previously the founder of Internode, Hackett also sat on the board of the NBN between 2013 and 2016.

This article was originally published on his website.

Tesla’s vertical stance contrasts with the ‘horizontal’ orientation of the rest of the industry — a commercial ecosystem that offers choice at all layers of the energy storage system, using standardised interfaces to allow mix-and-match assembly of devices in the solution ‘stack’.

Tesla’s evolving approach stands to put it into direct opposition to former allies — both existing inverter/charger vendors that may be cut out of the Tesla solution set and experienced energy system installers, who may see the presence of hardware ‘handymen’ installing generic/entry-level solutions to often complex underlying energy management problems.

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Energy Storage News – On Thursday, the Obama Administration announced a number of initiatives that plan to help the US transition to a smart, more energy efficient, 21st century power grid.

The White House is proposing a number of new executive actions and 33 state and private sector commitments are proposed to “result in at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years.”

A “smart grid,” according to the Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, is a system that uses computer-based remote control and communication technologies to help utility workers to monitor and gather data. It’s used in other industries, but has only recently been introduced in things such as power plants and wind farms.

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Energy Storage News – Aussie company Redflow announced its innovative zinc-bromine ZCell battery earlier this year, and tomorrow it’s getting its first public debut at the Australian Energy Storage Conference & Exhibition in Sydney. The enclosure for the 10kWh home energy storage system has just been revealed, designed to be easy to install with failsafes against battery fluid leakage.

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