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Add powerwall to existing system
- Thread starter ctopher2391
- Start date
Merrill
Merrill
It’s a real bummer to have to buy electricity from a monopoly out of control, I wish the CCA’s could bypass Pacific Graft and Extortion.
Yeah, I can understand the policy to defer EV charging until midnight. And I can get behind the concept that saving some electricity is good.
But telling people to jump in a community swimming pool instead of air conditioning is insulting. Telling people to air dry their clothes is a pile of cow pies. Telling people to watch their TV on low brightness in utter crap.
PG&E sucks. Powerwalls have amazing ROI in my opinion since they allow you to tune out PG&E's bullsh!t. The more ESS the more better. The less PG&E the more better.
@holeydonut I hear you, but I was just looking at ROI from a financial sense rather than a more holistically. That said, as an owner of a Tesla for the past 5 years, I have to say it was equal push from shitty legacy car companies and pull from Tesla being not only the best alternative, but also just a fundamentally better car. With the PW I definitely see the push from the legacy utilities, but the draw just isn’t the same…after all I think a diesel generator makes a lot more (financial) sense than the $12K PW.
charlesj
Active Member
I hear you. I think it is a case of different strokes for different folks on the Powerwalls. Diesels have some real advantages in terms of reliability, fuel stability and fuel availability, but fueling and servicing can be hard for some folks. Solar and storage has some advantages as well; it just works, but you need to have enough solar production when you are relying on it. Apples and oranges to me, but we have both for belt and suspenders.
Just FYI: these days permitting standby diesel generators can be problematic in many jurisdictions due to air quality regulations and for some areas of the country small diesels can just plain be tough to obtain for purchase.
All the best,
BG
Vinc
Member
No luck from Tesla, as of a couple of weeks ago. And, because of the way my system was installed originally, no luck from third-party either.
I got my system back in 2014 from then SolarCity. I had told them that I was planning on switching to EVs in the near future. They said that no problem, they could "expand" the system when needed, but they could not give me the extra panels until we actually needed the additional power. Fast forward to 2015. We have the EVs and go back to SolarCity. They say that no problem, they can add now. But what we did not know was that the "expansion" was not adding to the existing setup, but installing a full additional solar system, inverter and all.
And we get to now. We finally finished paying for the solar and can put that amount towards battery backup. But nobody wants to do it. As expected, Tesla looks the other way when we tell them that we got the solar installation from them before they offered powerwall. But most importantly, the third-party vendors that we have approached go radio silent after we tell them about our wonky setup.
Sharing, both as a cautionary tale (futureproof no matter what) and in case anybody has any insights.
Yeah, I read about people posting on reddit or other places saying to do more panels later, add a battery later, it's no problem to expand and always, in my mind, I thought that was not the wisest and people are going to run into problems for whatever reason. People keep saying battery storage will drop down to stupid cheap levels, but due to demand from EVs, supply chain issues, utility greed where people want to do time shifting to avoid peak rates, those cheap levels aren't coming anytime soon. Elon said they had a 80k backlog of powerwalls a few months back, I have friends still waiting to add powerwalls to solar for year+.
It's also a lot of work to manage an install and go through all the hassles of permits, inspections, etc where I never understood why anyone would want to go through that multiple times (it's not fun). I stuck as many panels in south/west locations as I could and until we move, we're probably done for now...(though a generator looks mighty attractive, but we don't get enough power outages yet).
Adding batteries compared to pure solar is also a lot more work due to a lot more electric panel work and general complexities so installers want to charge a lot more for it since they have to pay Tesla full retail prices for the battery (transation: it's not worth their time to do a battery install for cheap).
skepticcyclist
Member
But those of us in CA have to add them now to keep NEM 2.0. If we wait we will lose NEM 2.0, which in the long run will be a lot more expensive than waiting until the prices go back down
My comments to folks if one has a choice between a whole house generator and batteries, get the generator. That can be used anytime as much as one wants. Batteries just DO no work in winter, if you have heat pumps like me!!!!
skepticcyclist
Member
I have. They set up my current system. And even they will only add another PW if they also add additional panels (8 minimum). It will end up costing another $30k
Semper Solaris did my powerwall & panels as a new system alongside the existing Tesla panels, then did more panels later.
Be vague about the specifics of the current set up, so they send someone out to look at it.
Vinc
Member
Thanks, I will try them. My last attempt was directly with Panasonic. I have heard that their battery is a good alternative to Tesla's. You can send your info through their site and they connect you with an installer. They did reply asking for additional details (size of the solar system, year of installation, kind of inverter...). But after giving them the info they went MIA.
RKCRLR
Active Member
I thought I saw this somewhere. I have another thread going discussing whether adding a system under NEM2 to a current NEM1 system resets the 20 year grandfathering clause. The interesting thing is I upgraded my solar system in 2019 and then added Powerwalls in 2020. PG&E is carrying 2040 as my NEM2 expiration date.
Merrill
Merrill
That is not totally true, I was on E6 NEM1 and installed 2 powerwalls Pacific Graft and Extortion pushed me to TOUC and NEM2. They said this was because I was getting the SGIP incentive.
RKCRLR
Active Member
I received a SGIP incentive also so perhaps that is why they changed my NEM2 anniversary date. Also, reading the attachment, it only mentions exempting existing solar customers from the Solar NEM Consumer Protection Requirements if adding battery storage. It doesn't address changing NEM status for adding battery storage.
Merrill
Merrill
To be truthful I’m not sure what date they will use, probably the first solar panel install in 2010. I had another addition to the panels in 2016 and this year the powerwalls, that is when I got pushed to NEM2
