TESLA, the company best known for electric vehicles (EVs), said its energy-storage division – the unit that makes utility and home batteries – will likely be its growth engine for the rate of deployments and revenue in 2024.

While energy-storage deployments dipped in the fourth quarter compared with the previous one, total installations for 2023 were more than double in 2022, according to its investor filing. The unit’s profits nearly quadrupled.

Tesla said it installed 14.7 gigawatt-hours of battery storage in 2023. It is energy storage unit booked US$1.4 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter and US$1.1 billion in costs for those sales.

“I predicted for many years that the storage business will grow much faster than the car business,” Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “It is doing that.”

Tesla is tapping into demand for batteries that can help complement the increasing amount of solar and wind power being installed on grids. The United States market for utility-scale batteries is projected to grow by 36 per cent to more than 10 gigawatts this year, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie. One gigawatt can supply enough power for about 750,000 homes. BLOOMBERG