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The charismatic chief executive enters stage right, sans tie, and makes a pronouncement that his new product will change the world — cue rapturous applause from the audience and because this is the United States, whooping.

The thing about Musk’s pronouncement is that it’s most likely true.

It might not necessarily be his company — critics are divided as to whether Tesla will be the market leader it’s portraying itself as — but home and business energy storage is soon to change the way energy utilities, homes and governments think about power……..

Batteries allow homes and especially businesses to employ “peak shaving” — if power prices spike, flick over to using your own solar power and save money, or if the grid power is cheap, suck it out and sell it back later at a higher price.

Or simply save up the solar power your rooftop panels produce during the day for use in the evening, when your demand might be higher……..

Tesla Power builds on the Tesla Motors technology — relatively standard lithium ion batteries with smart software to help them interact with the grid. The initial interest has been huge. The company recently reported early orders of 50,000 to 60,000 batteries, or as Musk put it, “It’s like crazy off-the-hook”.

Effectively the company is sold out until the middle of next year and its huge new factory will not be big enough to keep up with demand.

At $US3000 for the battery and $US7000 installed with solar panels (US prices) the system makes it economic for houses to become much less dependent on grid power.

UBS estimates that in Australia, the system would pay itself back in six years.

But Tesla is not the only game in town — although it almost certainly has the best PR machine.

New York-based Eos Energy Storage claims to have cheapest battery solutions and is aiming for the “grid-scale energy storage market’’. Think storing wind power for later usage.

Earlier this month AGL launched its Power Advantage proposition — the first retailer to offer a battery solution. In this case it’s a suitcase-sized battery which can be used with or without solar panels.

And in Australian Brisbane’s Redflow is using a different zinc-bromide battery technology which has some advantages over lithium ion batteries.

Adelaide entrepreneur and Redflow major shareholder Simon Hackett has ordered a $1 million Redflow battery array to be installed at his Base64 business hub on North Terrace, Kent Town, which will substantially reduce that site’s reliance on the grid, and provide total back up power should the mains grid fail.

Redflow chief executive Stuart Smith said the company has recently signed an agreement to manufacture its batteries in the US, and is now embarking on the marketing mission to take the technology to the world.

While the installed price of Redflow batteries would be comparable to the Tesla Power Wall, the initial focus will be the business market.

Mr Smith said there was infrastructure like telecommunications base stations dotted all around the world, which currently rely heavily on diesel generators for backup power.

“We’re pursuing that market very aggressively,’’ he said.

“The next market is distributed generation in general. That can be four or five batteries all the way up to the large scale container of 60 batteries.

“A key target market there is anywhere there is a diesel generator we would be looking to target those locations……

New housing developments could also be fitted with batteries and either rooftop solar or small stand-alone solar arrays which would make them much less reliant on the power grid, which would lead to much lower infrastructure costs………

It is good news for most of us that large numbers of people will not disconnect from the grid, as the grid costs a lot to maintain, which would then be shared between fewer paying customers.

What is certain is that the electricity equation will look very different in a few short years, and it looks like, for the first time in many years, that ordinary consumers will hold a bit more of the power http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/how-home-energy-storage-is-going-to-change-the-way-we-think-about-power/story-fni6uma6-1227376126005