Tesla has announced Tesla electric, an electric plan exclusively offered in parts of Texas where retail choice is available like Houston and Dallas.
Tesla first piloted a “virtual power plant” in California, that invited Powerwall home battery owners to sell electricity back to the grid at peak times to mitigate brownouts. The automaker has since then expanded the program to Australia and Japan, and next it’s coming to Texas.
The product will turn Tesla into a retail electric provider in the Lone Star State and allows Powerwall owners to sell some of their excess electricity back to the grid, with Tesla as the go-between.
Uniquely, the product is invite-only. Tesla has said that if you own one of Tesla’s big batteries and have a home in a deregulated part of Texas, you’ll “see a banner appear on your Powerwall home page in the Tesla app.”
Tesla Electric is aiming to build on its vision to grow further than automaking. Other companies such as GM are also taking this foot. GM is working with SunPower and Toyota which has said that it is teaming up with a utility in Texas.
Back in July Tesla had said that its solar business had seen its best quarter in several years. Four months later, Electrek reported that Tesla had cancelled some of its solar reservations and laid off workers within the department.
