Solar panels allow homeowners to not only get electricity during outages, but also to share with their neighbors.

Tesla launched a virtual power plant in Japan consisting of Powerwall batteries. The company announced this on its official website.

In 2021, Tesla installed more than 300 Powerwall batteries in homes on the island of Miyakojima without publicizing the work. Local energy company Miyakojima Mirai Energy Co. provided free equipment to homeowners as part of its program. According to Tesla, as a result, she and a partner managed to launch the largest commercial virtual power plant.

Virtual power plants use solar panels and batteries in private homes. With property owners’ permission, they can send excess electricity to the local grid for neighbors to use when full-scale gas-fired power plants go out or become overloaded. Outages are common in Miyakojima due to typhoons, but now the Powerwall solar panels provide the locals with uninterrupted power even during inclement weather.

“During typhoons there is light, refrigerators work as usual. What could be better?” shared by a Powerwall user.

Tesla promises to install 400 more Powerwalls in Japan by the end of the year and 600 more batteries by the end of 2023. The company then plans to expand its network to the entire prefecture of Okinawa, which spans a series of islands between mainland Japan and Taiwan.

Tesla has already launched virtual power plants in Australia and California (USA), and soon promises to add another one to the power grid in Texas, where there are also failures. It is worth noting that in California, consumers receive $2 for every kilowatt-hour of electricity that is fed back into the grid during heavy loads that occur due to emergencies or high demand.

Earlier it was written that the head of Tesla, Elon Musk, handed over Powerwall solar panels to Ukraine. Now they provide electricity to the settlements most affected by the actions of Russian troops.

Before that, Tesla engineers proposed a battery design that could last 100 years. According to the developers, the battery should be compact, have a higher energy density and provide electric cars with long trips without recharging.