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Tesla ’s once - direct solar business is in decline , according to the latest trope from itsfourth - quarter 2023earnings account .
The automaker revealed on Wednesday that its solar deployment cratered by 36 % to a sum of 223 megawatts ( MW ) last yr , down from 348 MW in 2022 . Although high interest rates slowed solar growth in some markets , Tesla ’s shoplifting come as the United States notched a disk year overall ; the U.S. add 33 gigawatts of solar electrical capacity in 2023 , perestimates from SEIA , a solar industry radical .
It was a bad year for Tesla solar — its worst since 2020 . If we soar in , the final tail of 2023 looks worse still .
In Q4 2023 , Tesla ’s solar deployment drop 59 % class - over - class to 41 MW — down from 100 MW in Q4 2022 . Aside from find fault interest rates , the society offered no other explanation for the wattage decline . At least part of the blame may descend on a shift in Tesla ’s strategy from installer to supplier . The automakerlaid offsome of its own solar installers last year andcancelled numerous scheduled “ solar roof ” installations , per Electrek . Teslabought SolarCitya little more than seven years ago , for $ 2.6 billion .
Next to solar , Tesla ’s vim generation and memory board business is booming ( surprisal , surprisal ) . The company said its energy storage deployments — which include Powerwall home plate batteries and utility - scale Megapacks , topped 14,724 megawatt 60 minutes ( MWh ) in 2023 , up by 125 % from the twelvemonth earlier .
Despite the overall godsend , Tesla comment that it require some unpredictability in energy deployments quarter - by - quarter , and the house ’s Q4 results show as much . The car manufacturer deployed 3,202 MWh in Q4 2023;down from the prior three stern , but up if you liken that name to the same fourth part a year sooner ( Q4 2022 ) .
The shell of Tesla ’s residential solar business is n’t what it once was . Yet , commercial and family shelling still play a cardinal purpose in the switch to renewable vigour source , as they lay in intermittently usable unobjectionable energy for former use . Such battery can also help community , andeven entire islandsand states , prepare for extreme weather by trim peak demand on the grid and providing backup energy during outages .