From HTXT Africa

Just a week after it was launched, the Tesla Powerwall was reportedly sold out on pre-order until the middle of next year. Which means the chances of getting your hands on one of these home battery kits designed by South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk’s firm any time soon are slim.

The good news, however, is that there’s plenty of local firms working on similar ideas for reducing the cost of home energy storage to supplement domestic solar or mitigate the problems of loadshedding. Not so long ago, I wrote aboutNetshieldSA’s locally designed inverter system which can take you totally off grid at an affordable cost. This morning, another SA firm, Freedom Won, has announced a Powerwall-type system – the FreedomCOR (pictured above).

Like Tesla, Freedom Won’s background is in electric vehicles. Unlike Tesla, Freedom Won doesn’t build its own cars, rather it converts existing vehicles – like this awesome game spotting Land Rover at Chobe game reserve in Botswana.

Again, echoing Tesla, the choice of battery technology for the FreedomCOR is lithium ion cells. These are slightly more expensive than lead acid batteries, but smaller and more robust. Freedom Won says that its kits can cycle 5 000 times and are therefore good for at least 13 years before they need replacing.

Read more at HTXT Africa