Just as we start seeing more Powerwall deployment from Tesla, the company slightly increases the price of the home battery pack unit, while thousands of reservation holders are still waiting for the system.

Tesla’s second generation Powerwall has been benefiting from a great price advantage over its competition, but Tesla is now reducing that advantage slightly with a $400 increase on the $5,500 cost of the battery unit – now $5,900 on its website as first spotted by GTM.

A Tesla spokesperson commented on the change:

“Tesla evaluates its global pricing of energy products based on various factors and continues to make improvements that will simplify homeowner experience. Powerwall continues to provide great value for customers and installers.”

It’s unclear if it’s an actual hardware “improvement” or they are simply changing the pricing strategy for the Powerwall 2.

The $5,900 price is only for the Powerwall. Tesla still lists $700 in “supporting hardware” needed and they estimate installation cost between $800 and $2,000:

“Your final design and pricing will be based on your electrical panel, home energy usage, number of Powerwalls, and where you’d like your Powerwall installed. Typical installation cost ranges from $800 to $2,000. This does not include solar installation, electrical upgrades (if necessary), taxes, permit fees, or any retailer/connection charges that may apply.”

As we previously reported, it comes as Tesla is increasing the rollout of the Powerwall after a slow first year since the launch of the second generation of the device.

The system has been increasingly popular lately for large-scale virtual power plant projects. For example, Tesla has a massive plan to create a 50,000-home virtual power plant with Powerwalls in Australia and they recently announced that they will supply another ‘virtual power plant’ with Powerwalls at up to 1,200 homes – also in Australia.

In the US, Tesla is deploying 2,000 Powerwalls with a Vermont electric utility and it was recently selected for a similar project in New Hampshire.

The battery system is also being deployed alongside the rollout of Tesla’s solar roof system.

But the rollout is still limited in several markets as many reservation holders reports being on the wait list for an extended period of time.

The battery unit is being made at Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, where Tesla and Panasonic are also working on a production ramp up to support Model 3 production.

Featured Image: Tesla deployed over 300 Powerwalls in Hawaiian schools to cool down hot classrooms

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