Connected Solutions Real-World Experiences (MA - National Grid / EverSource)

[jsurpless]

Hey everyone

I was hoping that folks in Massachusetts could share their real-world experiences with Connected Solutions so far this year.

Asking because my mom lives in SE MA and has EverSource - her experience so far this year has been a bit disappointing. She's had overwhelming 3-hr events (18/20) with EverSource calling events almost every weekday for the last 3 weeks even when it was cool weather and/or cloudy out. This has resulted in only a 6.6 average kW discharge for the season which is a good deal lower than the relatively conservative estimates I'd made. Perhaps my estimates were too optimistic but also perhaps it has something to do with my estimates being based on National Grid events, as opposed to EverSource. Of course, they were also based on last summer so there's that possibility too.

So... could anyone share how their events are so far this year? I live in Bellingham and have National Grid - anyone out this way? I ask predominantly because I was counting on CS as a major offset to the cost of the PWs and this is weakening that offset.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[solarAddict]

That's strange! After the self powered and time based control option I have the energy exports option as well as the advanced options.

It might be worth a call to Tesla to see why you don't have this. Do you have the Tesla gateway as well (I assume you do since you have PW's)?

Yep Gateway 2, and I'm enrolled in Connected Solutions with NG since December of 2020..

 

[jhn_]

I have a theory. I believe this year Eversource (or Tesla) is calling for 5 kW (per Powerwall) and maximizing peak instead of duration. But I believe they are counting all events as 3 hours even though we can tell many of them have been only 2 hours. I believe this because right on Eversource Connected Solutions home page it says the events are 3 hour (not 2 - 3 hours). So bottom line, I don’t think we’re going to get any favorability this year compared to last because the events are shorter and we’re putting out a higher avg kW. I will email their support now but can others do the same to see if we get a similar answer?

Or Eversource screwed something up, or even more nefarious they are calling for 5kw over three hours knowing that a Powerwall will deplete before that and thus bringing down your event average to pay you less.

This year all my events except for one have been 5kw per Powerwall for two hours, with National Grid. The only one event that was not was that weird one hour @ 5kw per Powerwall event on a cloudy day.

 

[appleguru]

theory

Or Eversource screwed something up, or even more nefarious they are calling for 5kw over three hours knowing that a Powerwall will deplete before that and thus bringing down your event average to pay you less.

This year all my events except for one have been 5kw per Powerwall for two hours, with National Grid. The only one event that was not was that weird one hour @ 5kw per Powerwall event on a cloudy day.

I think Tesla is definitely screwing up here. There are definitely distinct 2 hour or 3 hour events; you can still see a reference to this on the mass save page: ConnectedSolutions Battery Program though you're right that the EverSource page only lists 3 hour events currently. Historically, Tesla would pull a constant 5kW per PW for a 2 hour event, or roughly 3.5kW per PW for a 3 hour event. However, this year, they're seemingly always just pulling 5kW per PW regardless of event duration, which makes 0 sense since it makes the 2 and 3 hour event profiles nearly identical (by my count, they get an extra ~6 minutes of output for a 3hr event compared to a 2hr event this way before hitting the "20%" threshold).

If you look at peak grid demand, it's been happening around 5:45-6:15pm most days this week. They seem to call for 3hr events when the demand is really high for an extended period of time, and those have been starting at 4p so far.

But with the way Tesla has been running the program this year, if they call a 3 hour event at 4p, our batteries will generally be at 20% and stop outputting by 6:05p, leaving the system without our assistance roughly when it needs it the most.

Side note: the PWs stop when the app indicates "20%". But this is actually closer to ~24% (as indicated in the gateway web UI), which makes sense. On 3hr event days, I've been outputting approx 31.1kWh from my 3 PWs. Their total capacity should be 13.5*3 = 40.5kWh. 31.1/40.5 = ~77% discharged.

By my count, 4 of the 15 events we've had so far have been 3 hour ones; the rest have been 2:

 

[appleguru]

2 quick notes:

1) we had a ~2hour power outage this AM, due to some downed trees. Powerwalls only had 20% left but still worked great to keep the house powered up.

2) looks like tesla finally added some “virtual power plant” indication to the app for those of us with eversource:

 

[alexguichet]

View attachment 830962View attachment 830963

Your app is very out of date, please update to a newer version and you'll probably see the settings.

 

[appleguru]

Anyone else have an odd ~1hr 15minute long event today? (4p -> ~5:15p)

 

[kb1ibt]

That’s about all the battery power that I had. So if it was longer I wouldn’t have known. Maybe they stopped it around the time NatGrid sent out a weather emergency text.

 

[appleguru]

That’s about all the battery power that I had. So if it was longer I wouldn’t have known. Maybe they stopped it around the time NatGrid sent out a weather emergency text.

My battery still had ~46% when the event stopped (back to 52% now, has been charging from solar since).. pulling >10kW from the grid atm during peak demand now though… very odd. Maybe you’re right about t storms, but wouldn’t that trigger storm watch?

 

[jhn_]

Anyone else have an odd ~1hr 15minute long event today? (4p -> ~5:15p)

Mine ended at 5:05 because that’s all the battery I had since there was not enough sun today to charge from 20% after yesterdays event back up to 100%.

Ended up right back at 20%. Hopefully tomorrow we are back to full sun and they at full mid-morning.

 

[jsurpless]

I still have not had events since early July 1st two events. I noticed today that I no longer have Tesla VPP in my app menu.

Am increasingly concerned that I somehow got sidelined/unenrolled

 

[Will792]

Anyone else have an odd ~1hr 15minute long event today? (4p -> ~5:15p)

The same here. Ended at 5:20PM when PWs were at 45%. Also looks like there won’t be an event tomorrow since PWs are currently feeding the house.

 

[djlandkpl]

Another weird one today. Was in grid services until the PWs were charged. No event took place. At 7PM the PWs started powering my house.

 

[manole]

Eversource finally got back to me regarding my question if this new behavior is intentional this year. Attached is their response.

 

[TORQU3]

Eversource finally got back to me regarding my question if this new behavior is intentional this year. Attached is their response.

So in other words they are changing the grid event parameters to extract almost zero extra benefit from system owners, but the end result will be a 1/3 lower connected solutions compensation payment. Got it.

 

[appleguru]

Eversource finally got back to me regarding my question if this new behavior is intentional this year. Attached is their response.

What was the specific question/behavior you asked about?

 

[manole]

What was the specific question/behavior you asked about?

Attached is my original question to Eversource Connected Solutions support.

 

[TORQU3]

Attached is my original question to Eversource Connected Solutions support.

Disregard my last post, I had it backwards. It's actually a benefit for system owners.

 

[jhn_]

Another weird one today. Was in grid services until the PWs were charged. No event took place. At 7PM the PWs started powering my house.

Same here. Like they started the day thinking there would be an event but by the afternoon there was no extra demand for electricity.

Today was back to the usual 5-7 two hour event.

 

[Az_Rael]

I still have not had events since early July 1st two events. I noticed today that I no longer have Tesla VPP in my app menu.

Am increasingly concerned that I somehow got sidelined/unenrolled

For whatever it’s worth, I also have not had any more events since early July even though I still haven’t heard back on my support request for being in the program incorrectly.

Wild guess theory: they had to pause the program for whatever utility/batch whatever I was mistakenly enrolled in until they sort out ther error.

 

[jsurpless]

For whatever it’s worth, I also have not had any more events since early July even though I still haven’t heard back on my support request for being in the program incorrectly.

Wild guess theory: they had to pause the program for whatever utility/batch whatever I was mistakenly enrolled in until they sort out ther error.

I just wish that someone would reply - it's been almost two weeks...

Here's hoping that you're right