Tesla has found a new buyer for its battery energy storage systems; Foschini Group, which has recently bought 307 Powerwalls.
The company needs the batteries to prevent load-shedding grounding its operations in South Africa.
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Foschini’s parent company, TFG, which also owns Jet, @home, and other stores, placed the order for 227 Powerwalls in July to be deployed at its 130 top-performing outlets. The company ordered 80 Powerwalls more the following month to cover 68 other stores.
Powerwalls now power forty-three stores, and TFG will accelerate the rollout at other stores, as reported by My Broadband.
TFG said its stores would rely on the Powerwalls to keep the lights on and run point-of-sale devices even when the power supply is interrupted due to load-shedding. It will also prevent systems from taking time to fully recover after power interruption.
“In many cases, after experiencing load-shedding, it can take some time for our systems to fully recover, and having uninterrupted power to our stores assists with that too,” the company said.
Another advantage is the batteries will help TFG save on electricity costs.
Rubicon Renewables installed the first Powerwalls in South Africa in 2016. The current generation Powerwall has a 13.5 kWh capacity and can output up to 7kW.
Powerwalls have helped Ukrainians deal with power outages as they grapple with the effects of the invasion by Russia. Last year, Tesla reported that 250,000 Powerwalls had been installed globally.
