You can make it charge from the grid by changing it's settings, I tried it and it works, but it's by no means a clean answer. Put your powerwall into backup mode, then go into the configuration wizard, delete the solar array, and switch the solar solar CT's to "Site" or "None". Voila, it'll charge to 100% from the grid since it thinks it's a non-solar.
Understood. I haven't done that specifically myself, I have played with physically moving the solar CT clamp to another circuit and was able to experiment with forcing grid charging - but what I did was not automatable in any practical sense. Well, I have lots of home-built home automation in place and actually probably could if I felt I had the need. Oddly before the system was installed, and right afterwards I had a burning desire to do all sorts of configurations that "weren't" allowed. In reality, after seeing the system in usage most of this turned out to be very edge situations that I normally wouldn't want in place anyway. Just a little more control over schedules and mode changes, and reserve levels would be much appreciated. Given my utility plans, there is no value in grid charging since I have more than enough solar (except emergency situations which are kind of handled). Also, at least in my case I actually got a visit from my utility when I did that for multiple days while my PV inverter was out.
During that time I was able to force charging overnight this way and still avoid Peak house load usage with the PW running the house during my utility peak periods - but my utility actually noticed and paid me a visit to see what was going on. Luckily just prior to that unexpected visit I had happened to move the CT clamp back to the solar live circuit since Tesla was coming out to fix the broken inverter - and because of the inverter situation that had just been fixed the previous day the Utility guy said "ok" and that'd they just monitor things for a while and come back if they saw a recurrence of the "weird" behavior of my system. They were not visiting because of the inverter outage which they were already aware of because I called and tried to get off the solar plan during my solar outage (which they wouldn't do!), and they said they could help in no way.
Are the changes you made via the wizard configurable via an API? Cool if possible. If not possible, my point pretty much still stands for all practical purposes, and probably in terms of not voiding warranties on this very expensive equipment, and causing a situation with the utility. I'm guessing Tesla can see this has occurred unless we isolate our Gateways & PWs from the internet/Tesla. So again, not practical in my opinion if only for risk and warranty reasons, and losing future updates which hopefully will occur in the future to allow for better configurations & schedules within the realm of what the PWs can mostly already do.
One other note, I also played with isolating the Gateway from internet access while I was trying to resolve what appeared to be some issues I was having with IP conflicts on my home network, and after resolving my immediate issue, I got distracted with life, and inadvertently left the gateway isolated. After a few days I received an email from Tesla saying that my Gateway/PWs had not connected to Tesla for a while, and for continued support I needed to follow some instructions, and/or contact them to resolve the situation if the instructions didn't work. While they didn't say anything about voiding warranty and such, the email was kind of worded in a way that made me nervous in regard to this expensive investment I had just made and in terms of their ability to flag and notice anomalies with my system out of all the the many systems I'm sure they've installed.
now I can control when full solar charges battery . In need to do a larger write up but here is code and pics : I do think I have to many schedules define since shoulders Define off peak.
