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Really crappy electrical service is the answer for me.

I always question the usefulness of this... How many people have their car home during the day? I guess more since COVID, but I pretty much am never home when the excess power is being made. My Powerwalls would make it doable but thankfully NJ is still net-metering.

Mine are at 11800 Wh after 5 years. The new ones are at 15000. Nothing lasts forever....

I have 13.2 KW of panels and made 42KWh on the solstice this year... the same amount that I made 5 years ago when the system was installed so that's pretty good considering degradation!

I got my rebate check this week! Thank you Tesla!

After deleting my original "in limbo" order from March I resubmitted in July. The two additional Powerwalls (2.1) were installed in the middle of October, along with the newer model gateway.

I am concerned about this because my first installed Powerwalls are located indoors, but code updates placed the last 2 outside. I hope the software is smart enough to still allow charging of the two warmer Powerwalls when the outside ones are too cold.

I rebooted the router and it works! Thank you so much!

I finally got my additional Powerwalls installed last week (yay!). They also replaced my original gateway with the new Gateway 2 and the tech added it to my local router network. I can control the Gateway fine in the app, but with Gateway One there was an option to stop the system, which I...

Thanks Yblaser. What happens when the grid voltage drops as it does around here on hot days? I notice the inverter will still output the same wattage, is it doing that by raising the amps? I would think this is also not good for the inverter.

What exactly happens to the excess power when solar production exceeds the inverter maximum? I know it clips, but it seems like the energy hast to go somewhere? Is it converted to heat? Given that there seem to be so many string inverter failures it seems fair to ask whether a high DC/AC ratio...

A 3 ton A/C based on 18 amps would use a little over 4KW per hour. That is about what mine uses. So just the A/C alone would deplete the PowerWall in just over 3 hours, never mind the rest of the house on top of that. I have two Powerwalls, but also 2 A/C units and although I can run both in an...

First thing I did is add a ton of insulation, including covering all the access points, but it didn't make a significant difference. It is a split level 50s era ranch so heating and cooling it is not very easy. The fan was a way cheaper solution than the insulation!

This month (July) was very hot in NJ, like everywhere else... This year is the first year that I have rewired the old attic fan that was already present with a slower motor and a thermostat set to 110 degrees. It doesn't pull air through the house, only through the attic space when the roof...

As an avid cyclist I can tell you they provide an excellent draft/pace, it's Keirin on my local roads now! If the ebike is replacing a car I think it's worth the slightly increased risk to other cyclist and pedestrians. An ebike can easily achieve 50 miles per kWh, good luck doing that with an...

Yes the same for me.

So almost four months later, nada from Tesla. It seems like they changed their minds?

May smashed all prior records for me too, 2.34MWh vs 2.12MWh prior record. I'm going to need all that net metered power if the Summer is as hot and sunny as May was!

Your solar production seems very low. To compare I made 46 Kwh today (pretty cloudy), so 2.5x more. Your system is either way too small or you have a lot of shading. To supplement 100Kwh per day you're going to need at about 20Kw of panels, which requires a lot of roof space.

I'm curious as to what your situation is for the electric bill to be that big. I'm in northern NJ, have 2 Teslas and 13.4KW of solar, and even with a very inefficient house and old central A/C units my solar system produces 97-98% of what I consume. I don't have electric heat (I'm considering a...

For those considering wood stoves you need to factor in the amount of work involved. I use a soapstone catalytic wood stove to supplement my natural gas furnaces. It's beautiful and wonderful to sit next to BUT I'm chopping and storing wood a lot, the stove and surrounding area needs to be...

I put an order in to expand my 2 Powerwalls to 4. I'm already on whole home backup so I'm hoping install costs will be reasonable. I figure I might as well get ahead of the game here in NJ seeing what's happening to the rules and rates in other states.

This happened for the first time to both our M3 cars with 2023.2.10 (2018 and 2020). It made me realize how many things I have set / changed in the cars. Super annoying.

I'm having a hard time justifying the switch for my situation... I have gas heat that costs me ~$450 a month to heat my home in the Winter. It used to get pretty cold here in Northern NJ, but not so much lately... It seems to me that heat pumps have few financial advantages in really cold...

My M3P was stuck at 100% from this update for a week. Navigation and Bluetooth were broken. Tesla rolled it back to prior firmware today and all is well.

Had a great second half of 2022 because I finally got a transformer installed on my pole upping my line voltage. I knew it would make a difference in the Summer months where the system would trip off for hours but every month since the install at the end of June has been a record for me. 18MWh...

We'd have enough... if we rode electric bikes instead of Teslas. My electric bike is 25x more efficient per mile in the Summer and 40x more efficient in the Winter than the model 3. Cycling in the middle of Winter isn't really plausible, but it does feel great recharging only 150 watt hours...

Low voltage on the line. You likely need a new transformer on your pole. It took 3 years and filing many complaints and sending emails and calls to government officials to have a new one put on mine...

I was under the impression that micro inverters are also somewhat less efficient compared to strings? Also a few years ago the MI that were available would clip the individual panels, I guess that is now solved with IQ7/8? My Solaredge inverter has already failed once.

I think unless they get rid of the income limits this policy will fail miserably and no one will adopt any of these products. The people excluded are exactly the people that have been buying the majority of new energy products.

Although you could hook up just one of the systems to your Powerwall, if the power goes out your other system would be off line because there is nowhere for the power to go. You can't hook up both systems to the single Powerwall because the power produced would likely exceed the Powerwall...

All South facing unobstructed panels, one string is on a slightly more inclined roof but really very little difference. I have the added advantage of having a South facing rear yard that has no trees, so even in Winter the panels are minimally shaded.

After taking into account all federal and state credits as well as the cost of electricity that I didn't have to pay for, I have officially reached the break-even point of my solar system after 60 MWh of production. Here is the math / details for people considering going solar: Cost of system...

One should consider any available energy certificates in the cost/production equation. It isn't a lot of money to install a larger inverter and this could result in enough energy certificate gain to easily offset that cost. Also a larger inverter allows you to add more panels later and see...

Well it's a year later... and FINALLY after 3 years of agony PSE&G put a new pole in my back yard with a transformer on it. They still have to run the primary to the transformer but it seems like it's finally going to happen! Just in time too the voltage problem continues to get worse, I've had...

If I had the $ and didn't live in the Northeast with crazy code requirements I'd build one of these and put a lot of solar on it. Definitely possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship Put alas I have a split level ranch that guzzles natural gas for heat. I did install a nice Hearthstone...

2 days total. They have spares on hand.

I'm not quite following your logic regarding peak production. Even on Winter Solstice, on a sunny day I'll peak at 80% of inverter DC rating. Are you talking about shady days? I think on shady days you may have a point, but the counter-argument to that is that your production is pretty low on...

Yes I agree that the efficiency is better when the inverter is driven at higher wattage. But I'd argue that this is a very small difference compared to the clipping loss.

I see this quoted a lot. It is not really accurate. The panels are the panels. If you have 15 KW of panels you have the same production curve, period. The clipping is loss. The misinterpretation here is that people ADD more panels so they get clipping and compared to a system with LESS panels...

If you have a string inverter setup the cost difference for a larger inverter is pretty minimal. For a SE inverter the difference for example between a 10kw and 11.4kw inverter is $300. Install costs should be the same as nothing else changes. If you know you are going to significantly clip (not...

Fast charge rates are useful if you have more than one electric car and both are used daily. Unless you enjoy getting up at 2am to plug in the other car...

No one told you about the soul selling clause?

I would assume they would split the panels across both inverters. I would take this option for $1500 as you'll make enough extra electricity to easily cover $1500 in a few years (assuming South facing non-shaded layout). Being able to add more panels is nice if you have more roof space. I...

Part of the reason that your yearly generation won't be affected that much is because on cloudy days you'll make much more than with less panels.

Out of curiosity, is it a 11.4 KW inverter that's software limited to 10KW output or is there a specific 10KW inverter available?

Solar panels are being produced at scale. The logical next step is producing batteries at that scale. It follows that local, state and the feds will cut back on solar incentives as this happens and customers realize they can cut out their power utility entirely with enough battery capacity (I'd...

I went with a local installer her in NJ for the panels, partly for this reason as I expect the inverter to fail regularly with my crappy electrical service. It failed less than three years after install. They replaced it in 2 days under warranty.

The salient point is that you will produce much less power with a single 7.6 KW inverter. You will clip (lose) anything above 7.6 KW. So if your panels are producing say 13 KW on a sunny day, you will be losing 5.4KWh per hour. Depending on your setup this may be significant. With different...

The DC input from the panels is what they are talking about. your output will be capped at 7.6KW A/C. I would absolutely insist on a larger inverter or multiple inverters unless you have lots of shading or opposing East/West orientations of the panels. I have all South facing panels and I clip 9...