In an effort to promote renewable energies, Vector launched a new campaign this week to offer 130 free 3 KW solar installations each equipped with Tesla’s new stationary energy storage battery pack, the Powerwall.

Soon after Tesla unveiled its series of energy storage products in April, Vector announced a partnership with the Silicon Valley car manufacturer to make the new products available in New Zealand.

This new initiative appears to be the first deployment of energy storage capacity under the new Vector-Tesla partnership.

For the next 20 days, anyone can go to Vector’s website to enter the contest or nominate a deserving individual, family, community group, marae or school. People will vote on who they think should receive a solar installation and a Tesla battery pack. 100 individuals or families and 30 schools will get the systems.

If you live in the AECT area and you have a propriety matching Vector’s requirements (see picture below), there’s no reason for you not to throw your hat into the ring.

Vector will retain ownership of the systems for the first 10 years after the installation, presumably to monitor the deployment of this new technology, and the ownership will pass to each winner after the 10 year period.

Vector’s CEO, Simon Mackenzie, is one of the rare utility executive who is truly embracing the potential of renewable energies combined with distributed energy storage. He had this to say after announcing the agreement with Tesla:

“We have to embrace this rather than hope it will go away. […] Looking into the future it completely changes the way the energy sector has to think. It will change the way we design and build networks and generation.”

Good luck to anyone participating in the contest and if you win, don’t hesitate to let us know about your installation – Twitter – Facebook

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