16 side tables for everything from coffee-perching to vase-displaying
16 side tables for everything from coffee-perching to vase-displaying

Megan Burns

Vada owner Sarah Boland shares her life in food
Vada owner Sarah Boland shares her life in food

Sarah Gill

5 trending trainer styles that will be huge in 2025
5 trending trainer styles that will be huge in 2025

Sarah Finnan

Veep creator Armando Iannucci on adapting Dr. Strangelove and antagonising Elon Musk
Veep creator Armando Iannucci on adapting Dr. Strangelove and antagonising Elon Musk

Sarah Finnan

Women in Sport: Professional golfer Sara Byrne
Women in Sport: Professional golfer Sara Byrne

Sarah Gill

Join us for Sip & Savour – a flavourful Spanish wine tasting event
Join us for Sip & Savour – a flavourful Spanish wine tasting event

IMAGE

‘A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into those years’
‘A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into those years’

Victoria Stokes

This picturesque Donegal home has been structured to make the most of its incredible views
This picturesque Donegal home has been structured to make the most of its incredible views

Sarah Finnan

The double-edged sword of home improvement television
The double-edged sword of home improvement television

Sarah Gill

Valentine’s gifts for the interiors lover in your life
Valentine’s gifts for the interiors lover in your life

Megan Burns

Image / Editorial

This Man Is Making A Battery To Power A House


By Jeanne Sutton
04th May 2015
This Man Is Making A Battery To Power A House

Remember a few years when everyone was like ?Elon Musk is coming to the Web Summit!?? And you were like ?Cool!? but you were also wondering what’s an Elon Musk. Then a surreptitious Google told you that the character of Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies is based on him and he’s basically the engineer/billionaire building the future of humanity with loads of crazy yet useful inventions? Although his idea of a transporting people long distance in steel tubes – see Hyperloop – was a bit too out there for our tastes.

Well, this man is hitting headlines yet again. He’s gone and invented a battery. A battery that can sustain an incredible amount of power and run a house or car – his company Tesla is primarily an electric car company. Musk, CEO of Tesla, unveiled his battery last week, and it sound pretty amazing. The ?Powerwall Home Battery? could help make people free from relying on grid electricity. The Powerwall stores solar energy for later use. If a heat wave hits, you’re basically leaving the lights on because hello environment. The battery Musk is developing isn’t the first home battery of its kind, but it certainly sounds like the most impressive.

The BBC put its capabilities in laypeople’s language for us: ?The system is called Powerwall, and Tesla will sell the 7kWh unit for $3,000 (?1,954), while the 10kWh unit will retail for $3,500 (?2,275) to installers. Energy comparison firm USwitch estimates that one kWh can power two days of work on a laptop, a full washing machine cycle or be used to boil a kettle 10 times.?

The only catch is this may all take years to implement, so whenever Elon wants to take a break from changing the world, we’re just going to suggest he sets himself a smaller challenge and works on smartphone batteries, Because if we hear another colleague ask us for a charger we may go a little bit crazy.

BBC

Follow Jeanne Sutton on Twitter @jeannedesutun