A new 41 acre suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia is being billed as “Tesla town” after developer Glenvill aims to outfit every home with a 7kWh Tesla Powerwall home battery, rooftop solar, and an electric vehicle charger.
Plans for YarraBend, the official name for the community situated along Australia’s Yarra River, call for 2,500 new homes comprised of a mix of three to five bedroom single family homes, townhouses and apartments. According to insight obtained by local publication One Step Off the Grid, the homes will range in price between $1.13 million to $1.6 million US dollars and feature high-tech amenities including access to a tech concierge, home delivery menus accessible through a YarraBend app, and electric vehicle charging powered by renewable energy.
Homes within the community will come equipped with roof-mounted solar panels that will feed energy into a Tesla Powerwall home battery storage system. The abundance of sunshine in Australia has made it one of the first countries in the world to receive shipments of Tesla’s rechargeable lithium-ion home battery system. Combined with the fact that Australians on average see a much higher cost of energy than the rest of the world, and with nearly two-thirds of Australians wanting to be self-sufficient in meeting their energy needs, the trend towards adoption of Tesla’s Powerwall has steadily increased over the past six months since its introduction into the country.
Nick Marinakis who heads up sales and marketing for Glenvil says YarraBend will achieve a 6-star ecologically sustainable development (ESD) rating making it the first infill development site in Melbourne to achieve such a high rating. Danni Addison, the Victorian chief executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, which developed the ESD rating system, says the project is one of the most environmentally sustainable developments in Australia, with a water reduction of 43 per cent, landfill reduced by 80 per cent and the potential to reduce energy use by 34 per cent.
Addison tells the Heidelberg Leader via One Step Off the Grid, “The Powerwalls, combined with solar panels (also standard), will mean that future residents will be able to benefit in a variety of ways, including dramatically smaller power bills and knowing that the majority of their energy usage is coming from a clean and renewable source,” .
“The electric car charging points will be another available option,” she said. “Combined with the Powerwall and solar panels, it is likely that ‘refueling’ future residents’ electric cars will be free.”
YarraBend aims to house nearly 5,000 new residents when the project is complete making it double the suburb’s population of 4,600 people according to data from a 2011 Census. Official contract signing on the project is expected to begin in August, with residents expected to begin moving in towards late 2017.
