In a bid to help employees working from home during the pandemic with load-shedding looming, South African companies are buying Tesla Powerwalls to enable them to work without interruption.
According to Rubicon Renewables, the official distributor of the Tesla Powerwall in South Africa, has noted that there has been a significant uptake in Powerwalls from clients that require uninterrupted work-from-home environments for their employees.
Rubicon sales director Greg Blandford told MyBroadband that they have seen growing demand since the launch of Powerwall products in South Africa and expect this to continue through 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have seen a consistent ramp-up since launch in South Africa and will see demand grow through 2021 irrespective of load-shedding,” he said.
According to Blandford companies that have a work-from-home policy in place have turned to Tesla Powerwall products to ensure their employees remain connected and productive, despite load-shedding implementations.
The same is true for individual consumers, who rely on Powerwall products to keep working regardless of Eskom’s load-shedding schedule.
“COVID-19 has created new ways of doing business,” Blandford said. “Many companies have allowed employees to work from home, the only risk to business interruption being load-shedding.”
“Clients have realised the need for energy security in the case of working from home and hence trust brands such as Tesla to supply them with their energy needs.”
“It has taken some time for consumers to realise that Eskom’s woes are here to stay and the combination of load-shedding and COVID-19 has caused consumers to take control of their own power needs,” he said.
Getting a Powerwall
To reserve a Powerwall system with anywhere between one and 10 Powerwall devices, South Africans can visit the Tesla website.
It is worth noting that the price of one Powerwall is one Powerwall is R127 550, with supporting hardware an extra R21 000 - these prices however depend on the exchange rate and does not include the installation costs.