Ok, I’m only a few days into having TBC + EE + PTO + GC all enabled. I think the system is still “training/learning”…but not sure it will get to what I need.
Right now (peak summer) I’m able to generate about 63kWh of PV a day. Without any home-load this would fill up my 51.3kWh ESS (2x PW+ and 2x PW2…54kWh @ 5% reserve). However, have normal home loads (inc AC) and these run during the day.
On PGE EV2A which has a 4-9p peak @ 56c/kWh, 3-4 & 9-12a shoulder at 45c/kWh and off peak at 26c/kWh. Sell = buy prices in both real life as well as in my Tesla app.
It seems that with the advanced settings above, the ESS starts GC @ 12a and goes full rate until it full with the ESS at 100% SoC, 54kWh.
Then my EV’s (two) start charging early AM (usually just after ESS are full) for a 745a departure target. All of this power comes from the grid, which makes sense, cheap off peak rate.
Then the sun starts coming up, and all of this power goes to the grid because the ESS are already at 100% SoC. This would be ideal IF pge did not cap generation to the grid based on PVWatts / Black&White bill. But since they do cap generation per
@swedge on a monthly basis based on PVWatts, this is likely going to cause me to go over and per
@cwied disallow my valuable peak generation NEM2 credits.
Then at 4p sharp (peak) the ESS dump at max rate down to 5% reserve, taking about 2.5hrs. This is slightly as expected, but I’m surprised it goes down to reserve without anticipating I have any any home load from 630-9p at peak and also 9p-12a at shoulder. Then, still in peak, abd then continuing to shoulder…I’m at reserve (so no more ESS) and the AC and other home loads are used…I’m drawing from the grid at peak rates, which I do not want to do.
I would think it would be financially beneficial to avoid those kWh’s either with time shifted PV generation into the ESS, or even off-peak GC to the ESS from earlier in the day.
So the issues I see are two-fold…
1) because of the PVWatts / monthly generation cap I clearly don’t want to GC the ESS to 100% SoC each night before the sun comes up. It will cause me to excessively generate to grid during the day from PV at off-peak rates. However, because I do have high consumption, both off peak (two EV’s) and off-peak/shoulder/peak/shoulder with things like AC…it would make sense for me to have some grid charging before the day starts so that ESS hits 100% SoC just before 4p (and then dumps itself to grid starting at 4p). Right now if I do GC off, it seems I can’t hit 100% SoC and this am leaving high valie NEM2 peak credits on the table. It doesn’t look like there is a way to make this happen is there? Seems like I need to leave GC off?
2) can I do anything (adjust buy/sell rates so they are not the same?) to drive ESS to not discharge all the way to reserve starting at peak (4p) so I have some ESS SoC above reserve remaining until midnight so I don’t have to pull any expensive peak or shoulder rate from the grid? Or is this just “learning/training” that will happen over the next few days?
Daily graphs attached.
Appreciate any thoughts to how to adjust settings to optimize, if at all possible.