Powerwall is Tesla's home battery, and its defining trait is how much it does in one box. Newer Powerwall generations include the solar inverter, so a fresh solar-plus-battery install needs fewer separate pieces of equipment on the wall and fewer conversion steps between your panels and your house.
Powerwall 3 can also work alongside existing solar, keeping the solar inverter you already have. Whether that arrangement suits your home depends on the inverter, system size and backup design. We compare keeping your equipment with changing it before recommending a system.
New to batteries generally? Start with home battery backup — it covers what a battery does in an outage, how long it really lasts, and whether you need solar. This page assumes you've got that and want to know about Powerwall specifically.