I have a pretty exciting video to talk to you about today and it's our certification with Tesla Energy. We are now certified to install Tesla Powerwall 2 units and Powerwall+ units. I'm really excited for this certification because it, broadens our knowledge and expertise into greater fields.
I know I've had a lot of customers that have been interested in the Powerwall and it just hasn't been a system that we've been able to offer. But now Tesla has opened up the reseller market again and we were able to get onboarded and get certified. So we now have the Powerwall 2 units, which are great for those of you that have an existing solar system and would like to add battery backup. We also have the Powerwall+, which is great for those of you that haven't gone solar yet.
You should go solar because you're paying a ridiculous amount for electricity and it's only going to get more ridiculous as time goes on. So you might as well lock in lower electricity costs by investing in a system today. And we can give you a quote for an Enphase system, a Tesla Powerwall system, and the Canadian Solar EP Cube system. I will be doing a comparison video against the EP Cube, Enphase system and the Tesla Powerwall+ and the Powerwall 2.
The big difference between the Powerwall+ and the Powerwall 2 really has to do with the Tesla solar inverter that's on top of a Tesla Powerwall unit. There's a misconception that it's a DC coupled system. I've gone through the training, it's not DC coupled, it's AC coupled and that's indicated in the round trip efficiency. So if you look at the Powerwall+ spec sheet, then you can see the round trip efficiency is 90%, which is an indicator with something that low it's actually AC coupled. This is in line with what Enphase offers for their system, which is around 89%.
Products like the Canadian Solar EP Cube that are DC coupled actually have a round trip efficiency that is much higher, they're closer to 94%. I don't think you're gonna see anything higher for round trip efficiency with a DC to DC solution, but 90% is still really good. That's better than some of the other products on the market. I remember Sonnen batteries, several years back had 85% round trip efficiency and Enphase was obviously higher than them and Tesla is a little bit higher than Enphase though I don't think 1% is gonna make a big difference long-term for you in terms of efficiency.
Now let's talk about the Powerwall+ and some of its key features that I think are cool, and why we want offer it to you when you're considering solar.
With our online proposals, you can request an Enphase, Powerwall+ and EP Cube comparison so you can actually change between all three options and see the different pricing and get a good feel on which package is best for your situation and which one's gonna give you the best savings. Because at the end of the day, that's the biggest reason why so many of us have gone solar here in California is because of the savings. But there is an underlining reason too. It's really good for the environment.
With that aside, the Powerwall+ unit when it's on grid has 7.6 kilowatts of continuous power. Now at at night when you're on grid power and you're just running off the battery, the battery can provide 5.8 kilowatts of continuous power. What's interesting, which is also an indicator of it being AC coupled that gets overlooked is that when the grid fails, the power output is actually higher than when it's on grid.
So during an off grid situation during the day when you have solar power, so the battery and the inverter can work together, you actually can have up to 9.6 kilowatts of continuous power. That's a good chunk of energy. Most homes during a power outage are using around 500 to 600 watts depending on what loads you have. If you have your air conditioner or pool equipment you're probably using 2000 to 5000 watts, but most homes average somewhere around 500 to 600 watts.
Now in the evenings when there is no solar production, you're just running off the battery, but Tesla's bumped up that power output on the battery. So you're getting 7 kilowatts of continuous power during the evenings. That's still a lot of energy available. You could potentially run in air conditioner, which that leads us to the next cool feature.
So during the day your surge capability is really high. You can have 22kVa (22,000-watts) surge with the solar inverter and the battery together. Now in the evenings you only have 10kVa (10,000-watts). Combine that with the LRA rating that Tesla has of 130, you should be able to start like a 2 ton, 3 ton, maybe even a 4 ton air conditioning unit depending on your model. Now if you're unsure if it'll start your AC, it would be safe to install a soft starter on the air conditioner. That helps reduce the LRA, which are the starting amps for the compressor, so that way the battery would be able to handle it. That might get you to a five ton air conditioning unit, which is pretty impressive.
Now the Tesla Powerwall isn't the only system that has a 22kVa rating. In fact, Canadian Solar EP Cube has that as well. Those surge capabilities are valuable during grid power outage situations. During normal grid usage, you're only going to see 7.6 kilowatts out of the system, which depending on where you live is going to be 90% plus of the time, less of those power outages. Now if you're somewhere in Texas or in Florida, those ratings are really valuable for you.
As for expansion with the Powerwall+ system, you can have four additional Powerwall 2 units connected to it meaning you can have five Powerwalls basically with one Tesla solar inverter. You can also double up, so you can have two Tesla Powerwall+ units and then each unit has four batteries. That would give you 10 Tesla Powerwall 2 units all together, so you can have 135 kilowatt hours of stored energy on site.
Now there are some restrictions within the electrical code that would probably limit you from doing all 10 units, but at least you know the system is expandable over time. It's not modular like Enphase or the EP Cube. So you have to buy a whole battery of 13.5 kilowatt hours, but at least you can expand on the system and get more power output and storage over time if you need it. And I think that's valuable for a lot of our customers.
Price wise, the Tesla Powerwall+ comes in at a relatively good price in my opinion. Even though it's not a hybrid inverter, it's still an AC coupled solution but it's competitive. I really can't complain with what Tesla's put together. I think it's a good product. I don't think it's the best product, but for those of you that like Tesla that own a Tesla, you want a fully integrated system with your Tesla EV vehicle. The Tesla Powerwall is probably a good solution for you.
If you're someone that has multiple roof orientations or you have a lot of shading issues with your project, you may not want the Tesla Powerwall+ because there's no module level optimization or module level monitoring. With that, you might want to consider the Enphase system. That's why we are certified for different products. So you can decide which one's better for your situation. Are you focused on saving the most money? Getting the best battery you can? Are you focused on getting the best solar technology you can, or you're trying to get something in the middle of the road? Either way, we are broadly certified so that way we can help you get whatever works best for your particular application.