Will the new Tesla battery power your home, and maybe the electric grid?

We had a power cut at our London office today and this reminded me about Tesla announcing yesterday that is working on a battery that can power your home and even help large-scale utilities store energy more efficiently, according to company chief executive Elon Musk.

On an investor call Wednesday, Musk said the designs for a home or business battery are already complete and will likely be unveiled to the public "in the next month or two." Production could be as little as six months away, he added.

"It's really great. I'm really excited about it," said Musk. But what is really interesting is whether Tesla's battery and charging technology could ultimately wind up saving you money on your electric bill. Although many of today's homes draw energy directly from the electricity grid, with storing renewables efficiently still posing practical problems for consumers and for utilities alike.

Now if Tesla's stationary battery takes off, it could change the way electricity is priced and traded on a market scale. 

For the millions of consumers who feel unsatisfied with their electric companies thanks to frequent outages and poor customer service, not to mention bills, the batteries could be a boon. In general, the choices for how people power their homes is relatively limited. Most have to rely exclusively on their local utility providers. Getting a generator can be expensive and speaking from experience, oil can be unreliable. So Tesla is eyeing a market that might be ripe for innovation.

“There may be a 'tipping point' that causes customers to seek an off-grid approach,” Morgan Stanley wrote last March.  “The more customers move to solar, the remaining utility customer bill will rise, creating even further “headroom” for Tesla’s off-grid approach.”

Tesla is already laying the groundwork to ensure its stationary batteries get as widely distributed as possible. "A lot of utilities are working in this space, and we're talking to almost all of them," said Tesla's chief technical officer, JB Straubel. 

Although all this R&D is early stage stuff and a lot of these projects are very far from going to market this business opportunity is certainly is gaining an increasing amount of attention.