Tesla’s wall-mounted battery system, known as Powerwall, is a smart residential energy storage appliance that offers homeowners the ability to store electricity and use it when the power goes out. But a $5,500 price tag puts it out of the reach of many potential customers.
Some energy enthusiasts have now developed their own Powerwalls for just a fraction of the cost
Capable of storing far more energy than the Tesla version, these DIY Powerwalls have been created using recycled laptop batteries.
According to Call2Recycle, a leading battery recycling organization, around 95 percent of batteries sold in the U.S. are never recycled and just end up in a landfill. Laptop batteries are specialized lithium-ion batteries. These batteries are good power storage units since they are designed to store power for laptops for long periods of use.
The first step to building a DIY Powerwall is collecting enough batteries, but this can be a time-consuming exercise. However, according to DIY Powerwall enthusiasts, these efforts are worthwhile.
There are numerous YouTube DIY videos dedicated to helping people build their own version of Tesla-inspired Powerwalls.
