Tesla is not going to be Just about Cars But there’s much more. Tesla has already been running trials with SolarCity, which is run by Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive, on a storage unit. What it does is hold onto some excess power generated by the panels on the roof of a home or business rather than immediately sending it to the grid. In the short run, this has the potential to solve a very big problem that’s headed California’s way brought on by the success of solar in the state. It’s something called “the duck graph” and what it shows is what happens when the sun starts to set and people head home from work. The result is a big mess where net demand for electricity spikes to the highest levels of the day all in the space of one hour. California is so concerned it has mandated significant energy storage be brought online to reel in the length of the duck’s neck before it gets too long.