Tesla Solar

Tesla Solar is the "generate" part of Tesla's "generate, store, consume" energy system: it puts solar power onto a home and feeds that electricity to a Powerwall battery and the house. Since Tesla stopped selling the Solar Roof in August 2026, it comes in one form: Tesla Solar Panels, built at Gigafactory New York in Buffalo since January 2026. The panels connect to the Tesla app for whole-home backup and energy management.

What is Tesla Solar?

Tesla's own panels, the TSP-415 and TSP-420, are all-black modules rated at 415 and 420 watts that mount without rails, and each one is split into 18 independent power zones, so shade on one corner costs less power. Tesla pitches its solar on price, on tight ties to the Powerwall battery, and on one app for the whole system.

Why Tesla Solar Exists

Tesla bought this business rather than building it from scratch. In August 2016, Tesla and SolarCity announced a deal to combine into what Tesla called "the world's only vertically integrated sustainable energy company," one whose products would let a home generate, store, and use clean energy together. SolarCity was founded in 2006 by Lyndon and Peter Rive, Elon's cousins, with Elon as chairman and the person behind the whole idea. On November 17, 2016, shareholders approved the merger, with more than 85% of non-affiliated shares voting in favor, and the deal closed in the fourth quarter. The goal was to make solar power, home storage, and electric driving one connected loop rather than three separate purchases.

How it Works

The panels feed a Tesla Solar Inverter, the device that converts the panels' direct current into the alternating current a home uses, offered in four sizes from 3.8 to 7.6 kilowatts. The newest design folds that inverter into the battery, so a Powerwall 3 takes up to 20 kilowatts of solar across six inputs at 97.5% efficiency. Tesla's solar panel warranty covers 25 years of performance, holding 98.0% of rated power at year one and then declining no more than 0.45% per year.

The Economics of Tesla Solar

In 2020, Tesla announced the lowest cost ever to go solar in the US, roughly a third below the industry average, with a price-match guarantee attached. Installs have moved with interest rates since then. Yearly installs were 326 megawatts (a measure of generating capacity) in 2018, rose to 348 megawatts in 2022, the best year since 2017, and were about 223 megawatts in 2023, the last year Tesla broke out solar as a headline number.

Current Status of Tesla Solar

The quarterly view shows the effect of high interest rates. Across 2023, installs went from 100 megawatts in the prior fourth quarter to 41, and from 2024 Tesla made storage its headline energy metric.

What Comes Next

Over the same stretch, Tesla's energy storage climbed from 4.0 gigawatt-hours in 2021 to 46.7 in 2025, nearly 12 times as much. Tesla now sells solar mainly as a partner to the Powerwall, while Powerwall and the grid-scale Megapack carry the revenue.

The Bottom Line

Tesla Solar began as SolarCity, a leading U.S. home installer, and now ships as Tesla's own panels from Buffalo, where the line was scaling to more than 300 megawatts a year in January 2026, pv magazine reported.