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!

 

[jhn_]

I don't care for this new "Preparing for a grid event". The Preparation starts at 8am. And it's not really a "grid" event. It's a Tesla/utility negotiated deal so they can get superchargers and other utility perks. A deal that shortens my battery life and capacity and may effect the Limited Warranty on the product. And before you say, 'there's a warranty on the battery capacity".... does anyone have a 10 year old PW that has been running as part of the Connected Solutions Program to see how Tesla performs on that Limited Warranty?

As others replied, events have always worked this way. The solar for the whole day charges the batteries only until they are full then the solar will power the house and go back to the grid. Now there are just graphics in the app showing this.

I for one love the connected solutions program and this is my third season. The time to break even on my solar install actually DECREASED with the addition of three Powerwalls from 8 years to 5.5 with the income from Connected Solutions. All year I run in self powered with a big reserve in the winter due to storms. In the summer not too worried if there is an outage due to our climate. So it works great for us. It might not be for everyone.

Also my three Powerwalls have only lost 1.2% capacity in nearly four years of continuous operation nearly fully discharging every day from running is self powered mode and the VPP and fully charging every day. I am amazed at their resiliency.

 

[Lmkwin]

They've always prioritized charging the battery on event days. They're just being more transparent about it. This is my 4th year in the program. My 2 PW have lost capacity as they stop discharging about 1:50 into the event.

I agree, it's more transparent now. Something isn't right when they control your battery for the day. 2 hour events turned into 3 hour events. Turned into 12 hours "preparing" for the event. Better than last year where there was no notice and then they provided payment with no accounting on it. I don't trust mega companies in general to have my best interests in mind.

 

[kb1ibt]

Today was interesting, it started out in the preparing for a grid event and then thunderstorms rolled through and triggered StormWatch so it cancelled the VPP.

 

[Lmkwin]

As others replied, events have always worked this way. The solar for the whole day charges the batteries only until they are full then the solar will power the house and go back to the grid. Now there are just graphics in the app showing this.

I for one love the connected solutions program and this is my third season. The time to break even on my solar install actually DECREASED with the addition of three Powerwalls from 8 years to 5.5 with the income from Connected Solutions. All year I run in self powered with a big reserve in the winter due to storms. In the summer not too worried if there is an outage due to our climate. So it works great for us. It might not be for everyone.

Also my three Powerwalls have only lost 1.2% capacity in nearly four years of continuous operation nearly fully discharging every day from running is self powered mode and the VPP and fully charging every day. I am amazed at their resiliency.

My solar install paid for itself in about 4 years, with the incentives and SREC payments and no electric bill after month 3. I added the batteries coming up on 2 years now. I got them for backup power and to reduce grid dependence. Connected Solutions,increases grid dependence. My solar is producing enough to power the house and to charge the batteries, but TESLA says that I should buy power from the grid so that my all my solar production fills my batteries as quickly as possible. Then I can stop buying power from the grid and they can pull as much and as fast as possible from my battery power to the grid. During an 'event' that they know how my capacity stops at 2 hours but time it out to 3 hours. NOT for grid relief, but to fulfill a contractual agreement between TESLA and the utility companies. Other than Tesla paying a randomly determined amount of money for using my stuff as they deem fit, it does nothing tangible for the consumer of the utility.

 

[qnzkrew]

So we have a tornado watch and the powerwalls were drained from yesterday and still not in weather mode where it would charge powerwalls from grid

 

[RHinCT]

So we have a tornado watch and the powerwalls were drained from yesterday and still not in weather mode where it would charge powerwalls from grid

That was my situation too when the tornado watch started here around 9:15, but around 9:45 or so (EDT) it changed to Storm Watch and started charging the Powerwalls from the grid. Charge is now at 63%, and charging at 7.8 kW.

 

[djlandkpl]

So we have a tornado watch and the powerwalls were drained from yesterday and still not in weather mode where it would charge powerwalls from grid

It has to be a warning for Storm Watch to activate. Granted by the time a tornado warning is issued, there may not be time to charge the PW.

Storm Watch | Tesla Support

Storm Watch allows you to maximize savings by keeping a low backup reserve percentage in Self-Powered or Time-Based Control mode, while still having peace of mind that Powerwall will react in time to protect you during a severe weather event.

www.tesla.com

Severe Weather Events​

Storm Watch mode is triggered only during severe weather events that are more likely to damage power lines and cause power outages. Storm Watch mode activates when the weather event has advanced in severity, and one of the following watches or warnings has been issued in your local area:

• Hurricane (watch or warning)
• Tropical storm (watch or warning)
• Red flag (warning)
• Thunderstorm or severe thunderstorm (warning)
• Tornado (warning)
• Winter storm (warning)
• Blizzard (warning)
• High wind (warning)
• Ice storm (warning)
• Snow squall (warning)
• Wind chill (warning)
• Flood (warning)
• Flash flood (warning)
• Coastal flood (warning)
• Lakeshore flood (warning)

 

[jhn_]

My solar install paid for itself in about 4 years, with the incentives and SREC payments and no electric bill after month 3. I added the batteries coming up on 2 years now. I got them for backup power and to reduce grid dependence. Connected Solutions,increases grid dependence. My solar is producing enough to power the house and to charge the batteries, but TESLA says that I should buy power from the grid so that my all my solar production fills my batteries as quickly as possible. Then I can stop buying power from the grid and they can pull as much and as fast as possible from my battery power to the grid. During an 'event' that they know how my capacity stops at 2 hours but time it out to 3 hours. NOT for grid relief, but to fulfill a contractual agreement between TESLA and the utility companies. Other than Tesla paying a randomly determined amount of money for using my stuff as they deem fit, it does nothing tangible for the consumer of the utility.

Dude, you either want the Powerwalls for backup or to make some money with Connected Solutions. The argument you keep making seems to be with yourself. Pick one or the other.

 

[Lmkwin]

Dude, you either want the Powerwalls for backup or to make some money with Connected Solutions. The argument you keep making seems to be with yourself. Pick one or the other.

Absolutely an internal battle. To excessively drain or not to excessively drain my batteries. To maintain control of my resources or have no control of my resources. I just "participated" in yesterday's event, you know, to help out the grid. Today I pulled more from the grid in a few short hours (Storm Watch activated) than I normally do in 2 full days. And shortly after the batteries topped, the stormwatch ended. It's a battle.

 

[Metralla]

I do understand, but you remain in full control as long as you have the option to opt out on events, or even the program altogether, right in the app.

Frankly it seems you should withdraw-life is too short to live with this tension.

 

[Lmkwin]

An odd Announcement of the Event today. Said that it starts charging for the event at 6am discharging at 4pm in the lower portion and the Grid Event says Starts at 5:30 ends at 7pm. Severe thunderstorm warning issued for my area at 3:40 to 8 pm. Grid Event actually did start at 4 and it did start drawing. I opted out as the radar and news was not looking like a good thing to be discharging all my backup power in the middle of a severe thunderstorm warning with "possible" rotation showing not too far away in dopler. I'll check my app to see if there's an update available for this bug. Gotta be a bug... or maybe a feature. Greater visibility but not accurate

 

[djlandkpl]

An odd Announcement of the Event today. Said that it starts charging for the event at 6am discharging at 4pm in the lower portion and the Grid Event says Starts at 5:30 ends at 7pm. Severe thunderstorm warning issued for my area at 3:40 to 8 pm. Grid Event actually did start at 4 and it did start drawing. I opted out as the radar and news was not looking like a good thing to be discharging all my backup power in the middle of a severe thunderstorm warning with "possible" rotation showing not too far away in dopler. I'll check my app to see if there's an update available for this bug. Gotta be a bug... or maybe a feature. Greater visibility but not accurate

Are you in Storm Watch? Last year, there's was a bug where SW charged my battery, the event started and started discharging while in SW.

Edited: At 5:50 my area went into a T-Storm warning. 5 minutes later Storm Watch kicked in with 1 hour left in the event.

 

[Metralla]

An odd Announcement of the Event today. Said that it starts charging for the event at 6am discharging at 4pm in the lower portion and the Grid Event says Starts at 5:30 ends at 7pm. Severe thunderstorm warning issued for my area at 3:40 to 8 pm. Grid Event actually did start at 4 and it did start drawing. I opted out as the radar and news was not looking like a good thing to be discharging all my backup power in the middle of a severe thunderstorm warning with "possible" rotation showing not too far away in dopler. I'll check my app to see if there's an update available for this bug. Gotta be a bug... or maybe a feature. Greater visibility but not accurate

I watched the grid event start drawing at 4 PM, then within minutes storm watch kicked in and kicked the event off for me-as I expected.
So I didn't participate much, but I have a full battery .

 

[qnzkrew]

Does anyone know the max amout of powerwalls for VPP or connected solutions. I have two now and want to know how many powerwalls I can have total and send back to the grid.

 

[qnzkrew]

I have two powerwalls on a connected solutions VPP program and I’m wondering how many total powerwalls you can have backfeeding the grid. I only have 8kw solar but when both powerwalls and solar are feeding back I can easily get to 15kw backfeed. Gateway is connected to 200 amp main and solar and PWs are on a separate production panel

 

[Will792]

I have two powerwalls on a connected solutions VPP program and I’m wondering how many total powerwalls you can have backfeeding the grid. I only have 8kw solar but when both powerwalls and solar are feeding back I can easily get to 15kw backfeed. Gateway is connected to 200 amp main and solar and PWs are on a separate production panel

Since your supply line 200A you can potentially backfeed 48KW from ( PWs + PV excess) but utility company will need to agree to it. I think maximum number of PWs connected to one gateway is 11 but this limit depends on supply line resistance. GW has functionally to limit backfeed to specified limit.

In my case I have 3 PWs and electric company did not specify limit for backfeed. Theoretically I can send 15KW from PWs + 17.3 KW from PVs but in reality it never goes above 18KW.

 

[qnzkrew]

Since your supply line 200A you can potentially backfeed 48KW from ( PWs + PV excess) but utility company will need to agree to it. I think maximum number of PWs connected to one gateway is 11 but this limit depends on supply line resistance. GW has functionally to limit backfeed to specified limit.

In my case I have 3 PWs and electric company did not specify limit for backfeed. Theoretically I can send 15KW from PWs + 17.3 KW from PVs but in reality it never goes above 18KW.

Yeah I just been looking around and have not seen any first hand account of more than three powerwalls and a want to make sure I’m not missing something obvious so I ask. I get back about $1,500 per PW in Rhode Island and plus the 30 percent rebate also helps. In my case they pay back for themselves after 4 years when taken tax rebate into account.

 

[adspguy]

I have 3 powerwalls and the events take 30kWh at either a 10kW rate for 3 hours or more often a 15kW rate for 2 hours. I have a 10kWac solar system and can generally recharge the powerwalls the next day before another event can start. with your 8kW, you might have trouble getting more than 3 powerwalls recharged for sequential events. When there is a pending event, the powerwalls will take all of the solar generation until they are full, using the grid to power your house. If there isn’t enough solar to recharge the powerwalls, your participation in the next event will be lower, which will lower your payback. The discharge rate is set to not bring your powerwalls less than 20% during an event.

 

[qnzkrew]

I have 3 powerwalls and the events take 30kWh at either a 10kW rate for 3 hours or more often a 15kW rate for 2 hours. I have a 10kWac solar system and can generally recharge the powet walls the next day before another event can start. with your 8kW, you might have trouble getting more than 3 powerwalls recharged for sequential events. When there is a pending event, the powerwalls will take all of the solar generation until they are full, using the grid to power your house. If there isn’t enough solar to recharge the powerwalls, your participation in the next event will be lower, which will lower your payback. The discharge rate is set to not bring your powerwalls less than 20% during an event.

Not worried about this since I have a second solar system I installed next to the tesla solar which can charge the solar batteries pretty quick. I can control the total export of the whole system. I was just worried tesla or the grid had a set limit of powerwall specific backfeed cap. I’m a commercial electrician btw and ive done solar installs

 

[BGbreeder]

Not worried about this since I have a second solar system I installed next to the tesla solar which can charge the solar batteries pretty quick. I can control the total export of the whole system. I was just worried tesla or the grid had a set limit of powerwall specific backfeed cap. I’m a commercial electrician btw and ive done solar installs

One gateway can handle up to 10 Powerwalls. However, as you add additional powerwalls, the line impedance requirement decreases. So, you may have two obstacles;
1) how much your utility will permit you backfeed at your site
2) the quality of the grid/transformers at your site.

I would take a look at these documents;

| Tesla

service.tesla.com

| Tesla

service.tesla.com