I only made 3.4kwh today on a 19kw system. Crazy on a sunny day I am around 90kwh give or take.
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My 5.88kW system, which usually does 25-30 kWh on a good day, generated a whopping 828Wh today. Max power output was 227W.
One good thing was all the smoke was high up enough that the air quality at ground level was actually not too bad (in the "moderate") range.
Also it wasn't hot at all in my part of the East Bay, so no AC needed today.
Bruce.
One good thing was all the smoke was high up enough that the air quality at ground level was actually not too bad (in the "moderate") range.
Also it wasn't hot at all in my part of the East Bay, so no AC needed today.
Bruce.
israndy
Supercharger Hunter
According to my Enphase monitoring system, these were my production figures for the month:
Sept. 9 - 0.54kWh
Sept. 8 - 8.52kWh
Sept. 7 - 14.78kWh
Sept. 6 - 15.34kWh
Sept. 5 - 16.33kWh
Sept. 4 - 16.43kWh
Sept. 3 - 16.33kWh
Sept. 2 - 13.72kWh
Sept. 1 - 11.85kWh
Sept. 9 - 0.54kWh
Sept. 8 - 8.52kWh
Sept. 7 - 14.78kWh
Sept. 6 - 15.34kWh
Sept. 5 - 16.33kWh
Sept. 4 - 16.43kWh
Sept. 3 - 16.33kWh
Sept. 2 - 13.72kWh
Sept. 1 - 11.85kWh
@miimura @Randy Spencer @bmah and others
Are your powerwalls charged, if you have them? What setting have you gone to in order to preserve your PWs in case of a PSPS or rolling outage? I am asking now to learn for my upcoming installation in one week!
Are your powerwalls charged, if you have them? What setting have you gone to in order to preserve your PWs in case of a PSPS or rolling outage? I am asking now to learn for my upcoming installation in one week!
I suspect everyone will have their own strategy and use-cases. For me, under “normal” conditions, my system is sized large enough that I usually run in self-powered mode with a very low (15%) reserve. (13.5 kW solarroof + 3 PW) However, the extreme heat, followed by the extremely low solar production and drained my PWs to the reserve limit, so I have switched to Advanced Balanced mode in order to save up enough power in the morning and early afternoon to avoid drawing any grid power during the 4-9 peak rates this evening. Then I’ll go back to drawing grid power overnight and repeat until solar production becomes “normal” again and I can go back to fully self-powered.
I was more worried about this and tried to have 50% in the PWs before I went to bed. That leaves us 35+% to start the next day. But since we have had so many Storm Watches lately and I assume we would have some in a PSPS situation, I may modify that. In Storm Watch mode I can charge from the grid right until the cutoff so I might start letting the PWs go lower. Also, if the Storm Watch is declared while we are sleeping, the PWs will charge from the grid.
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I've raised my "reserve" to 60%, considering switching to "backup only" given limited production. Normally I keep reserve at around 33%. Recently I've configured things to support the grid during the CAISO defined peak of 3 to 9 pm. I've now defined peak for me as 4 to 9 pm so my Powerwalls discharge during that time when there is air conditioning loads. When the weather is moderate, the air conditioning load is modest and I have enough juice to discharge from noon to 8 (normal peak for my grandfathered E-6).
I would be willing to let my reserve get lower if I was sure I could charge from the grid (e.g. we were in storm watch)
My normal mode is Cost Saving, with a reserve setting to try to get a close-to-full battery at the start of peak pricing. Usually that's about 30-45% depending on the time of year, weather, etc.
When there's a PSPS (did this twice last year), I've used Storm Watch to have a full battery when the grid goes down. With Storm Watch active, the reserve setting and operational mode don't matter.
For a rolling outage, I'd want to have a high enough reserve to run the house for 3-4 hours. That's not a lot, particularly since my AC units aren't backed up, so I might not even change my reserve setting.
Right now we have limited solar production due to smoke, so I've bumped up my reserves to 50% just in case there's a problem (because I won't be able to depend on solar to charge the batteries or run the house).
Hope that helps!
Bruce.
I did not change my Reserve from my seasonally appropriate 25% setting. I will definitely not make it through the Peak period with what I have generated today. I was only able to add 2.2kWh to my PWs before Peak hours started at 4pm. I am not in a PSPS area, so I'm not worried about an outage. When I was short on energy and Storm Watch was available, I toggled it on for a couple hours per day.
israndy
Supercharger Hunter
Well, I don't have a PowerWall, but listening to you guys talk is interesting. I thought you could ONLY charge the PW from Solar if you took the federal rebate. Are you saying a Storm Watch can be issued and that allows you to charge up from the grid? Do you have to? That would cost a bunch of money. Can you tell it not to if you are not home, or in my friends case you are selling the house?
Is there an Apple Storm Watch? I bet its cool if there is one.
You are correct. If you have solar you normally only charge your PW from solar. And Storm Watch status being declared let's you also charge from the grid.
You can control whether the grid is used to charge your powerwall in the app. There is a toggle in the app to turn StormWatch off and on. If you leave it in off your Powerwalls will never charge from the grid. If you set it to on, they can charge from the grid when a Storm Watch is declared by Tesla. So your friend selling the house should turn StormWatch off if they do not want to charge from the grid.
Just as a note on this - there is not, to my knowledge, an official ruling from the IRS on this. The private letter ruling that is cited as allowing PWs to claim the credit actually says it relies on an understanding that "100 percent of the energy used by the Battery must be derived from the sun". I really don't see the IRS looking to deny the credit for small amounts of the energy being imported from the grid, but storm watch is at least a bit of a gray area as it relates to the credit. And, the way the heat and fires are going in CA, I suppose it might no longer be a small amount.
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