Tesla's data for the first quarter of 2022 showed that solar PV installations continued to decline due to a shortage of components, and installations fell to 48 MW this quarter, the second-lowest quarter for this business in Tesla's history.
Tesla earned $1.279 billion in total revenue from its energy business, which includes solar photovoltaics and energy storage batteries, significantly higher than the $893 million in the first quarter of 2021 and slightly higher than the $1.064 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021. The cost of revenue for the Energy Generation and Storage segment was $688 million. Total revenue from all Tesla businesses was $18.76 billion, up $8.37 billion year over year.
In addition, sales and demand for energy storage products and services remained strong. Over the past few months, Tesla has secured various large-scale battery storage projects in markets such as the US, UK and Australia, according to news reports.
In the first quarter of 2022, the Tesla Powerwall BESS product will be deployed. Tesla said it was looking forward to opening a factory dedicated to making Megapack grid-scale products, but the company has not released sales figures for specific products.
That echoes what Tesla said in January when it released its full-year 2021 results, when company executives also said demand was "significantly higher than capacity." In 2021, Tesla deployed 3,992MWh of energy storage throughout the year, a 32% increase from 2020 and more than double the 2019 total.
It is worth mentioning that Tesla also revealed that it currently uses the same battery chemistry as the battery energy storage system (BESS), lithium iron phosphate (LFP), in about half of its models.