Tesla Energy, the automaker’s energy division, had a massive quarter showing growth in all sectors.
The company might be on its way to become a decentralized electric utility, as Elon Musk has been predicting.
Tesla Energy Q4 2020
Tesla had a record quarter for vehicle deliveries, but the performance of its energy division might be even more impressive.
The company deployed 86 MW of solar power during the quarter. That’s a 59% increase over the deployment from the same period last year, but it’s also a massive 29 MW increase quarter-over-quarter.
Tesla or SolarCity hasn’t deployed that kind of solar capacity since 2018, when it was still among the leaders in residential solar.
The solar deployment in Q4 was so strong that it pushed Tesla’s full year into the positive:
In 2020, solar deployments increased to 205 MW, 18% more than the prior year. This growth is the result of meaningful improvements to our solar retrofit strategy, including product simplification, cost reduction and industry-leading pricing. We have also made great progress growing Solar Roof deployments, as we have expanded the team while simultaneously improving our installation efficiency.
While solar is finally taking off for Tesla, storage has always been growing, and now it’s hitting hyper-growth.
Tesla has deployed a record 1,584 MWh of energy storage in Q4 – almost 200% increase year-over-year and 100% increase quarter-over-quarter.
Tesla wrote about the growth of its energy storage division:
Energy storage deployments grew substantially from 2019 to 2020. For the first time, our total battery deployments surpassed 3 GWh in a single year, which is an 83% increase compared to the prior year. This growth was driven mainly by the popularity of Megapack, our utility-scale storage product. Powerwall demand continues to increase as the residential business continues to grow. While we have made progress on production, we should see even further increases in supply the next few months.
During a conference call following the release of the results, CEO Elon Musk said that he believes it won’t be long before Tesla is back as a market share leader in the solar business.
Tesla’s next phase of massive growth is through energy division
Last month, we posted a report stating that “Tesla’s (TSLA) next phase of massive growth is going to be powered by its energy division.”
It is starting to happen. That’s some very impressive growth that Tesla achieved in Q4 and it looks like it could maintain that this year.
In 2019, Musk said that “Tesla Energy is becoming a distributed global utility and could outgrow the automotive business.”
It’s not quite there yet, but I think more people are going to start seeing a path to it becoming a reality.
We could see some seasonal decline in deployment this quarter, but I expect things to pick up during the second half of 2021 with more capacity with Tesla Solar Roof. The company has also been indicating that Powerwall production could be increasing.
In 2021, Tesla Energy alone could be a $4 billion in revenue business… and that’s just the beginning.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
