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The Enphase app is called Enlighten. On the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/enphase-enlighten/id787415770 I don't remember how I hooked it up three years ago, TBH. I'm reasonably competent with tech, but not an expert, so it couldn't have been that hard.

I think tankless with recirculation is not ideal. Recirculation would work better with a tank. I hear great things about heat pump water heaters, which should be excellent for our climate. As someone else said, put it in the garage to make use of that excess heat and cool the area down a bit...

I'm in New Orleans, so I've got experience with your climate. A high-efficiency heat pump is a great choice in our climate, far superior in efficiency to natural gas heat. (I'm not at all anti-gas, and I have two on-demand gas-fired water heaters and a gas dryer.) You want not just high SEER...

FYI for anyone whose panels have Enphase microinverters, Enphase has a nice app that shows production per panel per day.

Thanks! I don't think I'm in Storm Watch now ... but I haven't seen what Storm Watch looks like in the new app. T.S. Nicholas is far to the west of New Orleans, so Storm Watch wouldn't normally activate.

I'm in New Orleans, with PV panels and a 2-PW Tesla backup. My system handled the storm very well, almost perfectly. I've got a simple gabled roof with 18 Sunpower panels facing SSW. Our strongest winds were from the east, then swinging to the south. I've got a dozen shingles missing, but no...

I have a SureStart "soft start" kit for sale, Hyper Engineering part # SS1B08-16SN. $200 including shipping. This is a good addition to any A/C unit to extend its life, but it's essential for starting an A/C compressor with a limited number of Powerwalls. I used this on a heat pump with two...

Related question: how long is "too long" for the wires from the panels to the Gateway? My Gateway, panels, and PW's are within a few feet of each other, but a foul-up on the installation made the panel-to-Gateway wiring run about 100 feet when it could have been less than half that. I wasn't...

It shouldn't be complicated. My soft-start was only complicated because of a Daikin heat pump with unusual wiring. Premier Components Supply sells the soft starts online for about $250, and their employee Jeffrey Solak was very helpful identifying which unit I would need. Sure-Start Products

I doubt you're losing much production. It's only a few of the panels, and only for a few months in winter. You can probably do the math pretty quickly. Maybe $40 per year, tops? So the question is less about maximizing production and more about cleanup of debris and maybe hurricane damage...

My A/C tech did not know a "soft start" was a thing. He kept saying hard start and I kept telling him no, soft start. He called a few supervisors, who didn't know the difference either, so the tech eventually called the company owner, who knew the difference and set him on the right path...

All good comments here. I'm also in a 1:1 net-meter area, and I usually keep my two PW's in backup-only mode. One reason for using self-powered mode, ID'd above, is that's it's fun to play with for a while -- at least for the kind of person who spends time on an online solar energy forum...

I think a variable-speed A/C is the way to go. (I believe "inverter-driven" is the same thing.) You want an A/C that never needs more amps than the PW's can provide. A variable-speed unit is more expensive, but they're much more efficient and are likely to be cheaper in the long run, assuming...

I was happy to see no news on the Powerwall, because I just bought two of them last year. I hope the million-mile battery arrives one day, but I don't want my new system to be obsolete already!

Do they make one that exhausts out of a gable wall in the attic? I've got a sealed, conditioned attic, so it doesn't help to exhaust living space air into the attic. I saw some of QC's units that exhaust through the roof, but they use a lot more power than the others -- no ECM motor -- and I'd...

That's a more correct way to say it than what I said above. It was mentioned in a few articles that more or less said "don't worry about a little clipping; it's good for you in the big picture." It's been over a year, so I can't recall the sources. Another factor was that the extra cost of a...

A lower-rated inverter will be more efficient than a higher-rated inverter. So you might get some clipping with the smaller inverter, but you can more than make up for that with increased efficiency in converting to A/C.

Yes, but I don't know if what I do is optimal. I'm in south Louisiana, where we have frequent summer outages. Lately I've kept the reserve at 70%, to be sure I've got power if a thunderstorm knocks the neighborhood out for 8-10 hours and I'm not able to change the thermostats to conserve...

Here are some answers from Tesla: Best Practices During Power Outages | Tesla Support

You can also lose internet for a few minutes if your modem or router restarts when the PW takes over. This can happen even if the change appears instantaneous. My home network restarted about half the time, so now I have a small UPS for my router and modem.

I didn't think so, but BrettS earlier in the thread mentioned a mini-compressor in there. I haven't heard anything like a compressor in mine this summer (south Louisiana - hot!), but maybe there could be a quieter thermoelectric cooling system?

I know there's a fan that cools the PW's, and I'm not surprised that there's a radiator and coolant. But without a condenser of some sort, a radiator and coolant would only get the battery down to ambient temperature, right? So if it's 90 degrees outside, the battery will be at 90 degrees...

I always assumed that Storm Watch was a feature for users of Self-Powered or TOU modes, because they'd regularly be less than 100% charged. I figured Backup-Only is always at 100%, so there's no need for Storm Watch. But I've read here that Storm Watch bumps the power above the 100% displayed...

I'd have probably gone with a generator if it was an option for the reasons stated above, but my tiny lot couldn't meet the setback requirements without putting the generator in the middle of our courtyard, which would look (and sound) terrible. I will say that I had a GE whole-house generator...

Does anyone consider the effect on battery life of having a fully charged PW exposed to summer heat? My PW's are outside because I don't have a garage. I've read that it's not good to have a fully charged lithium battery exposed to heat, because it reduces battery life. I know "100%" on the...

I've got a 6.7kw system and 2 PW's for hurricane backup in south Louisiana. The 6.7kW is based on about 90% of my annual usage, but I might add a few more panels if I get an EV. The 2 PW's are a bare minimum to be able to have some a/c during an outage. I'd like to have another pair of PW's...

Assuming you have air intake vents at the soffits, get a ridge vent instead, if that's an option as mentioned above. First, it'll look a lot nicer than having a gap in the panels for a vent. Second, most green builders recommend against powered roof vents, even solar-powered ones. Powered...

That's a good thought. It's possible I was running on Self-Powered mode when I had the simple "flicker" that doesn't even reset clocks, but was in Backup-Only mode when I had the blackout for a few seconds. I'll keep an eye on it next time.

That's how mine have worked, EXCEPT the most recent outage about 10 days ago -- I was without power for about 5 seconds before PW's kicked in, long enough to require clocks to be reset. Anybody know why I didn't get just the flicker that I usually get when switching form the grid? This was a...

Just an FYI for those similarly situated: I have Sunpower 370 panels with Sunpower microinverters that are just re-branded Enphase IQ 7X. The microinverters default to shut off above 61hz, per Enphase customer support, but installers have the option of customizing that default setting. My...

I'n in Brett's situation, with PW's and 100% net-metering credit, in hurricane-prone south Louisiana. His initial post above asks all the right questions. I've alternated between backup-only and self-powered. One benefit of self-powered would be that "Storm Watch" will pump the batteries...

Good point. I did my testing with PW's around 90%, so I was getting solar. With full PW's, the 65hz output told my a/c compressor to shut off, so I couldn't test that way. I've since had it dropped to 62hz, so I'll try again. Good idea.

That's true if it's a slow-moving storm that hangs around for a few days, like the one in Houston a few years ago. Much more typical is the one that comes and goes in 24 hours or less, preceded and followed by typical summer weather. The downside for me is that 2 PW's require power management...

I'm in south Louisiana (not as hot as San Antonio, but the humidity makes up for it). I don't have time of use pricing, just a straight 10 cents per kw including the various regulatory fees and "undercoating" type charges that appear on my bill. I'm not going to make money by owning a PW, but...

1) Non-Tesla panels and inverters work fine with PW's. I have Sunpower panels, Enphase microinverters, and there's been no issue at all. 2) My installer was Tesla-certified. And I paid about $17k after tax credits for two PW's, in addition to my panels. If I was doing it over, I'd get locals...

Comment #43 by bob_p is very good. I'd add that you should try the same thing at night, when there's no solar power. I did the bob_p test and things worked. Then I did a similar test at night and found that my larger A/C unit would not start properly. It seems that my two PW's plus solar...

It would be nice if they had a similar feature for air conditioners, to keep the a/c from sucking the batteries dry in an outage. I can manually control the a/c units during an outage, but if power goes out at night in the summertime, I won't know until I wake up to a dead PW the next day.

If someone knows of a good opaque wrap, let me know - I want to cover the Tesla badges on my PW's to avoid showboating.

I have the opposite question from the original post: my Powerwalls are located outside and I want to cover the Tesla logo to avoid undue attention. The Tesla logo is kinda like a sign that says "guy with spare cash lives here." Has anybody here found a good cover-up?

Off-topic, but what's the benefit to this setting versus backup-only mode? I'm new to the Powerwall world and still tinkering with my settings. I'm on v. 1.44.2, FWIW.

I have a new PV system with PW2. In lieu of me decoding the 13-page UPS thread linked here, can someone recommend a UPS that will be PW2-compatible even if the gateway default puts out 65hz to shut down the inverters? I don't have a UPS yet, but I did notice that my router and/or cable modem...

Thanks, that's a great resource!

Interesting, thanks. Setting aside the emergency power issue, to clarify "shallow charge/discharge cycles": is the benefit of setting an 80% reserve that the battery is not going below 80%, or that the net loss is only 20%? I.e., would it be the same (or more) benefit if there were a way to...

First post! I’m deciding on the settings of my new (December 2019) system. I have 6.6kw of PV and 2 Powerwalls that charge from solar only. My utility has old-school net metering, with a 1-to-1 credit for excess production. Utility power costs the same all day and night. So there’s no...