Tesla Powerwall Battery, Solar, & EV Charging Systems

Tesla Wall Connector with its charging cable coiled beside it

The Tesla app showing solar production, Powerwall charge and home use

Swipe the display to see every part →

1Solar Panel2The String3Powerwall4Backup Gateway5EV Charger6Monitoring

1 of 6

The Solar Panel

The module itself — glass, cells and an aluminium frame. On a Powerwall 3 system the inverter lives in the battery, so there is no separate box on each panel.

Specs & why they matter

Typically 400–500 W per module on a residential roof today
Tempered glass over crystalline-silicon cells in an anodised aluminium frame
Power output is normally warranted for 25 years — the longest-lived part of the system
Degrades slowly and predictably, so a sudden drop in production almost never starts here

2 of 6

The Back of the Panel

No per-panel electronics here — just the backsheet, the junction box and the rail. The modules are wired in series as a string, which is why what happens to one panel can affect the rest of it.

Specs & why they matter

No per-panel electronics — the modules are wired in series as one string
Fewer parts on the roof, which is the main argument for a string design
The trade-off: the string is measured as a whole, so one weak panel pulls on the rest
Rapid shutdown is handled at the array, to NEC 690.12

3 of 6

The Tesla Powerwall

The big white slab, and the reason most people picked this system. Its face is deliberately blank — no lights, no switches, no vents — so everything you need to know about it comes from the app instead.

Specs & why they matter

13.5 kWh nominal energy
Powerwall 3 has the solar inverter built in — up to 20 kW STC of panels across 6 MPPTs
5.8, 7.6, 10 or 11.5 kW continuous depending on configuration
97.5% solar-to-home efficiency
10-year warranty; up to 4 units, plus up to 3 Expansion units
Rated −4°F to 122°F, which matters more in Texas than the brochure suggests

4 of 6

The Backup Gateway

The smaller cabinet that sits beside the Powerwall. It watches the grid, disconnects the house the instant the utility drops, and decides what runs off the battery.

Specs & why they matter

Watches the grid and islands the house the instant the utility drops
Handles up to a 200 A service
Where the whole-home-versus-partial-backup decision physically lives
Also the metering point Tesla’s app reads to tell solar, house and grid apart

5 of 6

The Tesla Wall Connector

The narrow white charger with the cable coiled beside it. Wired into the same system, it can charge the car from the roof and the battery instead of the grid.

Specs & why they matter

Up to 48 A / 11.5 kW on a 60 A circuit
Roughly 44 miles of range an hour on a Tesla
Wi-Fi connected, so charging can be scheduled against what the roof is making

6 of 6

Monitoring & the Tesla App

Live on your phone: what the roof is making, what the Powerwall is holding and what the house is drawing. The piece almost nobody checks — and the reason so many systems sit half-broken for months.

Specs & why they matter